They say that it’s a ruse, a scheme,

an invitation to bruise your fighting heart

But I say love is more of a four-letter-word

Shrouded in mystery and offensive to most

Muddled with so much uncertainty that once dug out of the mud, no one knows what to make of it anymore.

 

In my early days, I saw that love was a flimsy, crowded bench; don’t scoot too close to the middle, fat boy, or we might all just collapse.  

So imagine this, I stayed on the outskirts of it and vowed to never let myself be between anyone.  In solitude, there was safety, a lifeline clasped in my vice grip and I wouldn’t dare let go.

 

I later learned that love is a long, dark tunnel that hides your deepest fears and washes your shame away like the storm runoff from a hot september day.  I knew that the dark was for me, lonely and free, with the birds to keep me company and the wild grass beneath my bare feet to remind me that there was still beauty in this world, even though I continued to walk the forest, in search of a tree.

 

Then love became a hole in the drywall, broken glass, bruised knuckled gasping for a chance to change the past that would never appear.  

Seething car parked on the highway shoulder, letting myself out and vowing to never put myself in the passenger seat.  So off I set, busted compass telling me that north was always behind me.  

 

I learned that love was a wrecking ball that yearned to run its fingers soft across the bricks but its head was just too heavy.  That sometimes rubbing salt into the would is the best thing you can do because it makes you feel alive.

 

Alive, now that’s a word I’d longed to hear.

 

Alive like the sound of the rain against the ripped screen door, staring off into the hills and watching the earth and sky twisted together like a lovers’ quarrel.  

Alive like the lightning strikes running down my spine the moment I saw your face, thunderstruck in my mind so when you came up to me and said “Hi” the only thing I could do was nod.  Alive like your hands as soft as the dew-swept grass beneath my tired feet.  Alive like the fire that spread through my veins when you tell me that you want to float on your back down my bloodstream.  

 

And I began to see the forest for the trees, the storms for the breeze, the park benches for picnic baskets and people watching, long September days’ sun rays wrapping my body in a warm blanket of safety, drywall and glass building houses meant for laughing as I trip down the stairs and sitting down and trying to count every single one of your hairs because I swear they light up like gold when you catch the sunlight just right.  

 

And maybe we are strong, maybe we are light.