"love"

“I love you”

Fell cold and heavy on my heart

“Of course.”

“I just don’t have time to talk to you every day”

My phone screen flitted to black as my fingers searched for a response

“Of course.”

“I thought you said you could hang out right now? Fuck it, I need some space.”

My body folded away from his arm as he shoved past me into the hallway

“Of course.”

“I love you”

“Of course.”

“Stop being so clingy”

“Of course.”

“I love you”

“Of course.”

“We’re over.”

“Of course.”

Ten months of my life were spent never being enough. I was less than whole, a broken and fragmented version of what was supposed to be human. I contorted myself to be exactly what he wanted me to be, and he left anyways. That is not love. You should not have to break yourself to make another person feel complete.

Have I ever really been in love?

Perhaps.

It’s taken the form of singing around campfires on the Oregon coast,

Crouching in the wet sand

Practicing cartwheels while the wind urges our hair to fly with the seagulls

It’s taking turns watching favorite tv shows and laughing when they do, just to make them feel like their amusement is valid.

It’s walking in the dark, in the rain, just to feel like you exist

And naming new found constellations after each other

Feeling your heart swell as you watch them stagger through the dewy grass, their neck craned at the stars, searching

It’s looking into their eyes

And not being afraid to keep looking for a little bit longer

Because they have brown eyes and you’ve always preferred blue but

They hold an entire forest behind their eyelids and it’s the only place in this world where you want to be in that moment

It’s not hesitating to tell them exactly what’s on your mind

Not being scared or intimidated by how they may react

You should never be scared of the one you love

That’s the biggest one

Never fear them

They should be your safety

your home away from home

Love is safety

Love is support  

Unless you’re being an idiot

Love is guidance where guidance is due

Love is consent, always

Love is trust

Love is smiling just because

Love is being okay with having separate lives, and accepting that just because you’re together, you’re not one singular person with one singular life

Love is allowing one another to fall apart and being willing to pick up the fallen pieces

It is often misinterpreted as

“We are in love therefore you must always agree with me.”

Or

“We are in love so you must always do what I ask.”

Or

“We are in love so I am allowed access to every aspect of your life.”

No.

That is not love.

That is the blatant manipulation of a human being’s existence.

It is cruel and it is dehumanizing.

It breaks people and shatters any sense of trust they may have had

It takes years to recover from that kind of “love”

And it is terrifying how many people’s hearts are currently bleeding in their chests because they got caught in the cycle of

“wrong love.”

I am seventeen years old

And I already have trust issues.

I have already been broken beyond full repair.

I will always have their voices, their actions, in the back of my head.

And comparatively, I’ve had it easy.  

The scars are worn differently by everyone.

Some of them are literal scars that run ragged across one’s skin

Some are mental, leaving one paranoid and incapable of trusting anyone that comes into their life

Some are emotional, and leave one’s ability to trust themselves in a scattered pile of shards on the floor.

We must start educating ourselves on this type of heartbreak

The kind where one person wreaks havoc and leaves the other screaming on the ground.

We can not continue this cycle of purposefully turning a blind eye and pretending that it’s “just another fight” or “just another break up.”

It’s more than that.

It’s not love, and it’s not healthy.

It’s time for a revolution.

It’s time for us to fight back against the abusers and the bystanders

It’s time for our definition of love to change.