love is when you give your heart to someone in trust
love is also when they don't break it
love is when it's broken but you keep giving it
love is when they take it in their hands and split it in half, laughing,
but it doesn't matter to you and you keep pumping, you keep giving it
love is when you know someone's better without you so you let them go
love is knowing you're not always what they want
love is giving them what's best for them, not for you
even at the cost of your life-
that is how God loves us, and when in the sweet agony of love
you feel every pulse of Christ's wounds and every drop of his sweat sting
you bow your head and you have never felt more broken and
you have never felt more whole, you are at your most human and at your most divine,
the stars shine upon you with empathy because they, too, burn ceaselessly
for people who do not even see them- it is when you die to yourself
and rise in Christ for the sake of someone else-
that is what love is.