Crush \Crush\ (kr?sh)

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

Crush \Crush\ (kr?sh), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Crushed} (kr?sht);
1. To press or bruise between two hard bodies; to squeeze, so
as to destroy the natural shape or integrity of the parts,
or to force together into a mass; as, to crush grapes.

I have a crush at the moment. I always thought they would stop when I grew up, and they never did so I am either not grown up yet or I was wrong. I don’t mind them so much now, I kind of like them. But they are risky. I think the term needs redefining in middle age though, because I don’t find it unbearable, it lightens me up, puts some spark in my day.
The only heavy part sometimes, is knowing from long experience that the object of one's affections never feels the same. That in fact, the whole point of a crush or infatuation is that the crushee is unobtainable. After a fair few crushes in my life, I start them off with a sense of grief, knowing that soon all the giddy sensations will be gone.
My heart is not so much destroyed or bereft of integrity, as in an altered state. It hammers, rather than beats, skips, rather than pounds. My breath is ragged and my blood rises.

2. To reduce to fine particles by pounding or grinding

To act too early on a crush can leave you demented. It’s a kind of temporary insanity, and you are kept safe by never fully realizing the madness you are engulfed in, until you are safely through it. One day, your crush says something racist, or reveals an extreme side you cannot reconcile yourself with, and the feelings are gone. But if you approach them before this moment, if you ask them to feel the same way too…

3. To overwhelm by pressure or weight; to beat or force down,
as by an incumbent weight.

To crush the pillars which the pile sustain.
--Dryden.

Well, we all of us have been there. People are not always kind.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. --Bryant.

It's not that crushes can never become a real relationship. In some cases, when both people get the pheromone shot, or they spend enough time together to get past the whistle stop of hormones and find a real bond, then it can form into a deeper thing. But for the most part, a crush is something you get from afar. It's someone you don't really know, so the odds are stacked against you. It may even be someone you have never met(and are unlikely to meet). It may be someone fictional. But the feelings are real enough, for a time.

Crush \Crush\ (kr?sh), v. i.
To be or become broken down or in, or pressed into a smaller
compass, by external weight or force; as, an eggshell crushes
easily.

And of course, sometimes you are simply blind to it. If you are lucky, only once in your life you will be tempted to turn a crush into something more in your mind, to blind yourself to the utter lack of feeling on the recipients part, and to leap into the pan fully buttered up and ready for frying.

Crush \Crush\, n.
1. A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction;
ruin.

I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me

Violate all The love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored
- Garbage, #1 Crush


But for now I enjoy my crush. I circle the fire very carefully. It helps me remember I can feel this way, that there are possibilities, that the heart still wants what it wants. But unlike the younger me, I won’t act on it. Not ever, not until it had turned into something else.

In Greek, the word love is not enough. They had distinct words to cover all the aspects of love. English is curious, after all, how can we think one word would suffice for the emotion we write about, go to war over, lie about, lie for, die for, kill for? We confound ourselves with it. Eros is fire.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night

My heart sings. Just for today, for a brief moment of time, I secretly love him.