love.
a 4 lettered word strung with hope and naivety and new beginnings.
it is in handwritten notes slipped across classrooms,
lying under the stars with the world quiet in your palms.
love is everything and nothing one needs,
as she brings her destruction in simple measures,
subtle shifting changes that shatter the insides of one and build another.
strings of connection between one and another,
love is how you carry your words, the way your eyes shine at the sky and ache for the solidarity you never understood or knew how to discover.

love is soft kisses and worn jumpers,
paperback books with cracked spines and ink blotted pages filled with words,
love is in everything you find.
it is in the aging rings of oak trees and bending willows,
their love rooted deep into the earth.
love is fluffy dogs and small cats and animals that find a connection within you.

love is everywhere you look,
you will find love when you don't look for it.

when does it become dangerous?
love,
a four-lettered word strung with sharp, blinding pain and bruised people, cracked and forgotten in the midst of loved people.
it is cold words and bitter tears and aching,
filling your soul with a dark tide.
washing you over and over and over until you decide to give in to the darkness of love.
love finds destruction in a world full of it.
corrupted and weakened souls,
left to find a cure for a broken love.

fall in love my friend,
you will meet everything you needed,
and watch it fade.
let it shape you, let it keep you sane,
let it break you.
you are human,
let yourself love.