“You can’t have anything. You can’t have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It’s like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it – but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you’ve got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone. “ F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Beautiful and Damned

Indeed, desire slips so readily through our fingers once we hold that coveted thing. And in the blink of our eyes, we’re once more blinded by the glitter of the next novel beauty, the next promise of love, of wanting fulfilled.

The veneer is scratched away, layer by layer. Sometimes the process is lengthy, lasting months, years, decades. Other times, desire is doused instantaneously, without notice.

(Of course, let’s not become overtly cynical. Love exists beyond the glare of desire, yet for those who have not yet been so lucky we gladly play the fool, over and over again.)