1.
You love like it’s effortless.
Like it grew in with your bones,
like you have always known how to, like the idea of not openly expressing love is foreign.
(Love is a choice, you say,
like it’s obvious and certain,
Love does not intend harm)
2.
You love like you are waiting for someone to stab you in the back.
Careless, and freely given, until the line is drawn on the grass and you expected this in the first place - you live as though you expect to need to cut your losses at any second. (Until that point, however, you love wholeheartedly— hell hath fury on those who harm the ones you love.)
3.
You love as though it will break you if you don’t. Your emotions are bursting on the surface, and it will hurt you more to turn a blind eye than it will to take a trip down another’s misery. You love earnestly and obviously, and your own bleeding heart will come second always, but you understand what can happen, heartbreak - will risk it again and again despite that the odds may now be ever against you.
4.
You love like it’s a forgone conclusion that everyone knows love exists. Like it’s just there, and of course it’s supposed to be good, and of course it’s supposed to be freely given and returned. (And you seem so confused when others do not follow your simple ideology.)
5.
You love cautiously. Because you thought they weren’t out to get you, once, but they were. (And not all parts of you survived it.) So now everything terrifies you, and you create holes to jump through, tests to run - your use of the word trust is seldom, of love rarer still.
6.
You love in secret. Like a facade will protect you from life, but all it does drive people away who don’t come back for the second look. You love as though you’re unlovable, but you know what it’s like to be loved, and you willingly go with the ones who come back through.
7.
You love people like they will save you. A hope that they will rally to your side. You need them, but you need them to need you, and you know how to be calculating, but you didn’t want to be. You love freely, though, until they burn the bridges you once crossed together.
8.
You love people who don’t expect it, and you love like you’re on a mission, non-malicious, because you’re really just trying to give others a little piece of the world they don’t yet have, and the love and affection that comes afterwards is an unintended, albeit not unwelcome consequence.
9.
I love like it’s forbidden.
As though the minute it is admitted, the love will disappear, by nature of simply acknowledging the fact.
(And so they fade away without ever knowing.)
10.
You love like it’s an afterthought,
like you didn’t know you were allowed to.
It drips from your shoulders,
in an array of colors
I have never seen before.
And yet, it’s kept tight against your body
As if you’d rather it be hurt then you.
(You’re allowed to be loved, and love in return. You already are.)
10 interpretations of how different people love, the first 9, of 9 different people from my perspective, the 10th an interpretation by my friend in response to reading the poem, on person 9 (me).