an attempt to define love

everyone lays claim to love in some shape or form.

but what is love, really? does anyone know?

there have been so many different depictions and ideas of love—

it’s like finding a missing piece of yourself in someone else.

it’s belonging to someone completely, and them belonging to you.

it’s belonging to yourself only, but finding a heart that beats in tandem with yours.

it’s two souls, bonded together.

it’s one soul, split in half.

it’s meant to be, it’s fate,

it’s saying “forget fate” and “i choose you, over anyone, over anything, over and over and over again.”

it’s death do us part,

or for now and all eternity.

it’s falling and flying and tumbling and breaking and being reborn.

it’s something worth dying for,

something worth living for,

something worth sacrificing for.

“you’re no one until somebody loves you,”

or “love yourself before anyone else.”

it’s poetry, it’s song, art and prose and light,

it’s heartbreak, sorrow, jealousy, bitter rage.

and fear. so, so much fear.

yet, such profound fear can only stem from a love that is precious indeed.

after all this deliberation, this consideration,

i still do not know which perception is truth.

but perhaps the beauty of love is in the not knowing, the trusting, the pain of falling and the freedom in flying. the joy in being caught and the devastation in burning to the ground.

i’ve wondered, and i’ve pondered,

but i think i’ve decided i no longer need the answer to an unanswerable question.

—i do not know love, but i feel it,

and i am content.