Half Smiles

Nothing but a three a.m. rant.

 

 

       Love has no introduction.

     (So I put it at the end.)

     Love is what makes you cry in the middle of the night and what makes you the happiest you've ever been when the rain is pouring down outside. It's what steals the right words at the wrong times and tosses them back at you when you think you need them the least. Love is what makes you smile like a complete idiot when you're drowning in the negetivities of life, and it's what makes you unable to speak in the middle of a conversation because you just can't help but laugh. Love is writing a letter by hand because you want to, it's writing a letter by hand because you know that it will make someone happy. Love is running as fast as you can in 90 degree weather. It's sitting in silence because there's no need for anything more. Love is half smiles and the good kind of eye contact with a warmth, love is wanting to hold someone and nothing past that. Love is those moments that just pop up in your head every once in a while, the ones that you never intended on remembering but see so vividly in your mind's eye. It's ear-and-cheek happiness, it's breakdown, curl-up sobbing in the shower. It's more than butterflies and chills, held hands and shoulder-pillows. It's the butterflies and chills that you never get used to, and the held hands that don't get numb after three hours of sitting still. Love is what you're terrified to say but what you know will be all right in the end. Love is the failure to imagine your reaction to tragedy and the failure to imagine your world without. It's enough to make you panic with a just a thought. Love is the phone call at three in the morning because you just want to know that everything is okay. Love is love when no one else is there. Love rejoices in the truth.
     It isn't supposed to be overused, but it has been so that sometimes we mistake it for everything else that we think is great, or what we tell ourselves it's supposed to be like. I wish we could understand its profundity, its depth. Love isn't what you feel after you've been dating someone for a week, and it never seems to be what you're in when you lose your virginity. It isn't infatuation, it isn't obsession or greed. It doesn't have to leave a bed unmade and a sink splattered with stale water. It's something that I don't believe can be defined, not even by example. It isn't a connection between two humans, but a connection between whatever is holding their bodies together - it's a connection between two souls, and the ability of those souls to have enough trust in each other to keep themselves 100 percent whole even when they are a thousand miles apart. You can't see it or hear it, and you can’t speak it or touch it. It isn't really a feeling, but the closest you can get to knowing what it is is by feeling it in an almost supernatural way, experiencing it, believing with all of your being that it's there and that it truly is absolutely and amazingly powerful.
     But I don't really know all of this. I'll just believe in it until maybe someday I'll realize it's something else. I've never been in love, but I've felt it sweep the tips of my ears and I damn well know that it's out there somewhere, even if I never really find it.

     It is the greatest of the three remained.

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Reviews

[Luthien of the Woods]

"It isn't a connection between two humans, but a connection between whatever is holding their bodies together..." I like these lines, very profound yet very basic in terms of knowing a "love" as it was designed to be. I agree with your perspective that humans, to be able to really love truly must go beyond what the body wants and feels (instincts) but what the soul is trying to tell us....Yes, we are created in God's image and we are more than our bodies will tell us.

[poetforlife]

Boy, you truly captured what love truly is and to say that you've never been in love is interesting. You must have had someone in your life "show" you what love was a great deal of the time to be able to put it on paper like that. It is all of those things and so much more but I totally agree that it is so commercialized that people don't really stop to understand what it means or stands for. I think love is a committment. Whether it is to a special someone or a friend or family. Caring enough about someone to consistently make it a point to make sure they are o.k. and being there for them.....that is love. Thanks for sharing this and causing me to re-define how I think about love.