Love: to feel a deep romantic attraction.

I’d always seen the word “love”
plastered on the front of magazines
and embedded into the plots
of every movie I watched as a kid.

I witnessed my sisters go through boyfriends
claiming they’d love every one of them
until their dying breath.
My mom and dad would say it, and at six
I completely and naively believed it.
Love was just something I was
molded by society to long for,
something I was expected to find.

But when I started growing up
and my sisters were hurt by every man
who swore to protect them,
and the man who promised to cherish mom
walked out, I thought maybe love
wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Yet on the long summer nights
where I would stay up late watching
stories filled with romance playing out perfectly,
I still hoped one day that would be me.
Then high school came, and everything changed.
I realized love was never solely romantic
or only from family who I was told “had to love me”
I learned that love can be passed between human beings
purely by existing in each other’s universe.
But what I realized too late was that this kind of love
leaves scars just as deep.

I had friends here and there that would claim
to love me unconditionally,
friends who promised to be there for me forever,
but when things got tough, they walked away from me,
carrying all the remnants of love that I had left to give.

Half way through and I was an empty shell,
thinking that I would be okay
if I never had to love someone again.
Because if I ever had to give a part of my heart and soul
away to another person who would take and never return,
then I wanted nothing to do with it.
But the universe never liked to listen to what I had to say
and it decided to present me with a new set of people
I would eventually grow to love with every ounce of me.
So lately I’ve been plagued with questions
on what love really and truly means.
People like to define it so many different ways:
romantic love, true love, platonic love, so many
different feelings that only confuse me.
And yes, I know there is a difference between
“love” and “in love” but recently, I’ve started thinking
about what “just love” means to me.

Love feels like car rides with the windows
all the way down while the wind tangles our hair
and with the music all the way up while we scream
every word to every song.

Love feels like sleepovers at my house
laying on top of each other and watching
videos on someone’s phone,
bursting with laughter every few minutes.

Love feels like holding hands while we walk
down the hallway and not caring what others think
because whose business is it anyway?

Love feels like being wrapped in each other’s
arms because sometimes that is the safest place
in the entire world
and crying into the shoulder of the person
you would literally give your own life for
because they never want to see you hurting
and you appreciate them so much for that.
Love feels like being their own personal
cheerleader because sometimes they
are their own worst critic.
And you can’t possibly imagine how
they don’t see what you see
but you’ll do anything to help them get there.

You see, all the little moments blur together
into an emotion that I can’t begin to describe.
Like grinning all they way to their house
because you haven’t seen them in a week.
And simply telling them you’re there for them
when it feels like no one else is.
And promising to visit as much as we can
after we go our separate ways.

Love: my three best friends who have helped
to make me into the best version there could
ever possibly be.

And maybe one day, I’ll find that fairy tale
kind of love that I always dreamed of,
but for right now I know I have a love that I
could never thank the world enough for.
Because these individuals have redefined
the word for me, and I love them so much for it.