Love is...
Love is playdates putting on grandma’s old make up.
Love is a surprise cookie cake in your 4th grade classroom.
Love is scavenger hunts around the house.
Love is secrets. confusion. betrayal. abandonment. neglect.
Love is slow dancing and being asked for my 1st kiss outside the camp disco.
Love is wrapping my arm with numbing creme and Saran Wrap in the wee hours of the night in preparation for morning blood work.
Love is chewing gum and throwing it in the grass before you French kiss.
Love is receiving a letter sprayed with boyfriend’s cologne.
Love is protective. paranoid. distrusting. anxious.
Love is yelling. doors slamming. threats.
Love is visiting me in the nurses office.
Love is sending flowers.
Love broke up with me.
Love went to college.
Love gave me false hope.
Love & I reconnected years later. Love looked the same.
Love & I were still attracted and still had nothing in common.
Love was sweet.
Love was fleeting.
Love made a girl threaten me and gossip spread.
Love was at the liquor store one night.
Love romanced me for the year, reserving dinner at a special spot in my hometown for my birthday.
Love and I stayed friends for over a decade.
Love and I left a frat party and dated 5.5 years.
Love cheated on me and never apologized.
Love wrote the loveliest poems. Illustrated a cook book with my favorite recipes.
Love expired.
Love was a Tinder success who made delicious pizza from scratch. Poured me a bath. Didn’t like how I washed the dishes.
Love was missing for awhile.
Love’s 21 year-old-girlfriend turned wife deleted every photo of us together.
Love presented at a conference and had the best accent.
Love did a 180 after he got the flu and couldn’t stand being taken care of.
Love was no longer excited for the upcoming trip he initiated or meeting his parents.
Love showed up at my open mic, each potluck I hosted.
Gifted me a plant for my birthday with the sweetest card.
Love got excited to spend a weekend away with my friends, offering to drive and pack games.
Love invited me to join his family’s Passover when we were just friends.
Love taught me to be in my own pleasure. To look for the sacred.
Brought me milk and cookies in bed on a Saturday night.
Love inspired me to cook for others.
Love opened up a portal of grief that felt like a physical pain in my chest that could kill me.
Love is scary and holy and elusive and complex and simple all at once.
