“Get out? Oh, no, no, son. I have tried every way.”
Geppetto

Did you ever write something and not realize how profound it was until after you read it. When I say this I mean profound in many ways. I wrote something like that once and it helped me realize that one of the true mascots for love and unrequited love is Geppetto. I’ll explain:

I was writing this rhyme and it was a moment that many writers may have had, my pen was just moving…I compare it to doing a great freestyle, you’re not thinking about it you’re just doing it and it’s coming out great. Anyway I wrote this in the midst of that:
“…Lovelorn fellows/Pinocchios Geppetto/No strings/Still Cling/ Feelings Erupting…”

I didn’t think about until a couple days later. The no strings/Pinocchio reference was easy. However, it started to mean more when I thought about Geppetto. Geppetto may be on of the most deserving and downtrodden figures in literature. All he ever wanted was a son. So the blue fairy comes and gives life to one of his puppets…and all hell ensues. One of the first things this little prick starts doing is lying. Then he breaks out. Even with the benefit of having his conscious present in the form of another being he hardly ever actually listens. He’s put into forced labor. Then get’s himself kidnapped and turned into a jackass. To top it all off Geppetto goes to seek him out and ends up getting eaten by a whale. When I think about it, the should change the name of the song from “Everybody Plays the Fool” to “Everybody Plays Geppetto”. Money really put himself out there and showed some unbiased unconditional love for someone who didn’t really appreciate it until they found themselves in bad situations. Haven’t many of us had people like this in our lives. Be it a romantic or platonic love. Someone who doesn’t listen to your advice and proceeds directly into trouble. Someone who leaves the saftey you provide to go out into the world and screw up. Geppetto is like the nice guy in high school that watches his beloved next door neighbor date a slew of jerks and assholes. Even though he warned her they were there. Despite him showing her nothing but love and infinite patience. She never seems to get it until something really bad happens and she looks around to find that he’s the only one there who still cares about her. It’s the brother that doesn’t want to listen cause he feels like you’re trying to run his life. The one that walks right into the trouble you warn him of. The one you walk the streets pulling out of bad situations. The one who doesn’t understand until much later that you probably saved his life on numerous occasions. Some of us know the pain that Geppetto feels and we don’t always get the payout that he got in the end…well the updated end. Carlo Collodi originally wrote the book so that Pinocchio died at the end due to his many character flaws. It was his editor who requested he lengthen the story and make the ending happy…basically he told him to Hollywood it up. In life we rarely get the Hollywood ending. I can think of at least 3 times I was Geppetto and the only thing real at the end was bitterness. So support your local Geppetto…cause despite the fact that we’ve been him, when we see him we usually tell him to let go and move on. Geppetto can’t let go though. Even though he does actually want to help…he wants love to. Not a Romantic love, a pure love even if he has to face the whale.