How does one truly put emotions like these into words? How do you explain the pain in your chest that shows it’s ugly face when that certain someone walks into the room? Very few skilled artists can describe these sort of things. I can try though it may come out as a jumble of cliches, but I hope you walk away knowing the feeling. Maybe that’s why you’re reading this. Maybe you, like myself, are trying to find words that aren’t there to describe how you feel. You see love unlike most emotions is very fickle, it’s not as contagious as a smile. It’s not comforted like sadness, and it isn’t confronted like anger. Why is that? I always find myself asking that. Why is that all emotions are dealt at the source, except for love? Is it because no one can really pin it down to one source? Is it because no one truly knows how it ought to be dealt with? I like to think there’s another reason behind it. Love is all three. Love is smiling like an idiot when she gets good news. A promotion from work or a phone calls from a beloved family. Smiling even though, you were caught in traffic and late. Even though you have a burn on your chest from when the intern bumped you and your coffee this morning. Love is keeping those negative things out your conversation, and searching for something positive to tell her just so she can light up more. Love is watching her enthuse about her feelings for her boyfriend, and how she feels that he will be proposing soon. The way she touches your hand and asks “Are you okay?” When you look distressed. The way it feels rolling off your tongue, poison trickling down your throat as you confess your feelings. It’s also in the way she looks at you sympathetically as she tells you. “I love my boyfriend… I want to marry him”
Love is feeling that rots inside your heart. As you collapse on the floor with a bottle of wine. Love is the tears and ache that pours out of you into the night sky as you clear your head. Memories of years past flood your mind, and it’s all too much. You could end it, you want to end it. It’s just jump away as the freeway lay several feet below you. And just when you decided to act, your hands on the rail. Love is that sweet, calm voice that you know so well. Love is your true friend. Showing to you the way she seemed so sad today, talking about her mother calling to tell her that her brother just had a son. The tears that welled in her eyes when she confided in you that she was afraid her lover would kill her soon. That she had overheard him talking to his friend. About her life would soon come to it’s end. Love is the burst of energy you have as you race to her. The feeling of dread, pooling into the pit of your stomach. He’s there in the parking lot. Waiting for her. Now it’s your chance to save her. You will be the hero. He greets you with a concerned smile. Asking you what’s wrong. Are you okay. He never had the chance to see your kitchen knife as you pulled it from your coat. He did however, feel as the dull blade pierced through the soft flesh of his belly. Love is the color his shirt turns as he cries out in agony, stumbling away from you. Calling for help like a cowardly dog. Love is the feeling of pride that puffs up your chest, as you close in on him. shoving him to the ground. Your small frame holding him down as your blade cuts into his neck like butter. His body spasms for a moment as the whites of his eyes show. He has grown still, nevertheless you still drive your knife into his body. Love is her face as reality returns. Her screams and sobbing as she struggles to call 911 as she keeps a distance from you. It’s the moment when you look down at yourself and see the blood of your brother on your shirt. The blade slips from your hand. Love is the moment you realize what you have done. As you back away from the corpse. Loves is the way she rushes to his side, in hopes there is still a small ounce of life still in him. It’s also the way she cries even louder as she discovers the gash on his neck. The way she realizes their life together was over before it began. Insanity is what they call your love. As you sit before the judge. Waiting for your sentence. Love is what you feel when you look into the crowd one last time as they lead you away. Seeing her sitting there, crying on her mother’s shoulder. Love is the look you thought you saw as she glared at you. Screaming profanities at you. Calling you a monster. And even though you know she didn’t hear it. You still whisper, “I did it because I love you.”
