alright, here goes love for the uninitiated

Does it mean love when his scent lingers in the air for you. You breathe in and smell his skin, the mixture of sweat and the soap used on his shirt.

Is it love that ignites the desire to always have his arms wrapped around you? Missing the way his warm hands rubbing against the length of your legs the moment he leaves for the night? The way he bends and kisses your knee and buries his nose, tantalized with the thought he can suck in your very essence and live off of it.

Is it love when you laugh at the same things- off-color jokes and stupid juvenile pranks? Of fat little kids cussing and tormenting stupid adults? Drinking beer to good times. Coffee in the guise of breaking the monotony of work but in truth, just another excuse to get him alone.

Is it love when there is regret he met you too late? And all that’s left- because you choose to take the high road- is hope that this devastating physical attraction will not put a strain on this deeper connection you both feel. What is it when you cannot be in the same room when he talks to her softly and with a little strain because he misses her so much too?

Where does love reside? In the one he has committed to be with for the rest of friggin forever or in the one who makes him feel alive again? Because we are too young to define life as one strong line, paved with our plans for the future, how can one moment decide what we do with the rest of it?

Or is love really just a fickle bastard, pulling and shoving us whichever way it chooses because there are more than three billion people in the world and it is statistically incredulous that it is one person to one. So which one is it? Destiny or just damn luck- being in the right place at the right time, being the best girl at the moment when he decides you are the one?

Is love about quitting smoking- or at least trying to? Or getting the first drag from her after years of repulsing it? Because she chain smokes like a crazy chimney?

Is it planning for the three-day weekend because you know time flies when you’re together. But that no plans at all is also good enough? It does not matter what movie or where you’re driving to. Because being together is all you need.

Does it mean you love him when you respect his boundaries and decisions? Holding back your 113 reasons why you should be together, or hinder your hands from wandering too far? Because you only have one life to live. And what is it to you if you gain all the happiness in the world with him if you forfeit your soul- and consequently drag him down, down in a spiral of guilt?

Is it love when you choose to just take in these fleeting moments and mine them for every good thing you can take with you in your old age- where not even the snow can dampen the warmth in your chest where she used to lay her head? Or the din of the crowded streets of New York can drown her voice in your ear. Or wherever she finds herself in whatever corner of the world- when she sleeps, she’ll always imagine when her incubus frightens her in her sleep- you’re there to comfort her, stroking her back, enticing her vivid dreams.