"in" love

i'd like to have a conversation with the ppl who put words to the feeling "falling in love."

i'd like to know what they were thinking. i'd like to know if this strange consuming empty feeling – this gripping helplessness and vulnerability, this confusion – is what they'd imagined for people in such a state. or, am i getting it all wrong? is this really "stress-induced fever"? "vertigo"? or perhaps "stomach flu"? maybe i need my appendix removed?

did they know that they were articulating a feeling very different from simply "loving someone"? it scares me because there's a preposition: "in" – i'm inside it(?!) – i've fallen – "fallen in" – was there a trip wire i didn't see? was this the result of some trickery, some carelessness on my part? must i be hurt at the end? or is there a mattress i can rest my head on at the bottom of this tunnel? maybe a trampoline?

and is there a way out?