Existing

the meaning of love

"What does love mean to you?"

Love means falling head over heels for someone only to trip on your way down and get only bumps and bruises. It means starting out with only a name. Starting with only the knowledge that this person exists and that they may or may not know you exist. You learn their name, you talk sometimes. A word between classes here, a stuttered sentence by the water fountain there. You learn to love their smile, their laugh lines, their stretch marks, their scar by their eye they got when they were six and got hit with a baseball. You learn to appreciate when they find you funny and when they notice how your eyes are dimmer than usual. Love means awkward goodnight kisses on your front porch when it's past your curfew and you should really be going inside so your mom doesn't get worried but instead of leaving you stay and enjoy their lips that taste like the breath mints they've been nervously popping all night, preparing for this moment. And in this moment your body sets off fireworks and your mind turns to wet sand and for just this moment you feel invicible. Then it stops and it feels like Niagra Falls pours over your body and you want more but instead you just grin like a small child and say you'll see them soon. Love means you go inside that night and can't wipe that silly smirk off your face and your parents suspect what's happened but they pretend to be oblivious. Suddenly your life seems to be turned upside down and this person is your new everything, and you're okay with that. Their name feels like Christmas morning on your tounge and their touch is like the satisfaction a child gets when they finally dive to the bottom of the pool. Love means there comes the day when you find their lips tangled with another's and you feel as though you are chained to the bottom of that pool unable to breathe or make sense of what lies above the water. Love means their name is no longer smooth to the touch but rough and unforgiving and burning like vodka down a lonely throat. Their touch is now a slap, a push, a knife in the chest instead of light kisses on your forehead. Love means you spend weeks in your bed just crying your eyes out and sleeping away the heartache and dreaming of what you could have become. And you wake up screaming at 2am only awakening to an empty room with an empty mind in an empty person living an empty life. Love means you lay back down with tear stained cheeks and your chest heaving with the smoke of loss and dissapointment, clogging your lungs. You wonder how you could have been so stupid, so naive, so oblivious. Love means that in this moment of total destruction, this moment where you just want to run away from the firery ashes of your heartbreak and escape from it all, you realize you never really knew what love means at all. And you wish someone had told you before you tried to figure it out on your own.