Theme of Love in Death Wish by Josh Baker

In the poem Death Wish by Josh Baker, the narrator suggests that falling in love is nothing more than a sentence to damnation because of the risks involved and explains this complicaticated concept through various metaphors and complex word choice. An example of this is shown when the narrator begins the poem explicitly stating “Love is a death wish between two men bold enough to believe in it.”. The lines that follow express this idea further with the narrator exclaiming “ To love you is to fade daily. To leave you is to die sooner.”. In other words, these lines depict feelings of punishment associated with falling in love. The narrator purposefully uses words with negative connotations in comparison to love such as “a death wish” and dying sooner to express this idea that love is not as happy and warm as everyone thinks it is, especially after it ends because the harder you fall in love is the more it’ll hurt when it’s gone. I think these words noting human mortality also may symbolize the mortality of love as well, insinuating that love doesn’t last forever and maybe that’s why it’s a bad idea and you’d have to be ” bold enough to believe in it”.    

 In the middle of the poem, the narrator then continues to recall the times as a child wear they’d purposely try to see how long they can hold their breath while fantasizing about a prince delivering their breath back to them. The details afterward start to narrow down as if the narrator is talking about a specific person. They state “I will never admit to him that his love feels like a tease from God. A gift I only deserve as prelude to punishment.” Although it is unknown who the narrator is speaking of, it is seen that they are trying to fight away the temptation of loving this man. They describe this as a “prelude to punishment”, hinting that only bad things will come from loving him but seemingly aren't upset at their own feelings. It is almost as if it’s a forbidden love where the narrator knows it’s a bad idea but they still want to secretly indulge in it since they never denounce or prohibit themself from loving him but instead, conceal it. This ties back to that idea of love being dangerous because he knows that expressing his feelings could be risky so he’d rather keep it to himself. 

Finally at the end of the poem, the narrator expresses “Love is a bluff  between goodbye and forever. You give yourself to the gamble, to the breathlessness that is a hammer on your chest.” and makes the readers question in the lines that follow  whether or not they’re wrong in their resolution of choosing not to declare their love. The narrator puts emphasis on love being a dangerous gamble in these concluding lines especially since it can be euphoric, making you lose sense of yourself to the person you love, which they state “Firm as ice, given over to the power of his touch. Left to melt into a nothingness that I no longer recognize.”. All in all, it is seen that when all these ideas are connected, the narrator feels as though love is a death sentence because it’s happiness is not certain to last.