Love Is
A person, a streetlamp, a light bulb
Love is not a feeling. It isn’t warm or giddy or goose flesh or ripples on your arms. Love is the invisible thing that makes you go back.
Love is the thing that breaks reason, the thing that makes you cry when you never cry. It seeps out punctures.
Love is not big. It’s small.
So small it’s often lost and hard to find. It’s misplaced and mistaken for other things, but it’s love.
People would have you believe it’s wide and for everyone, but it’s not. It’s for you. And it might be safe, but you don’t know that yet. You’re scared.
Love is clear. So clear it’s hard to see. And it’s quiet. So quiet it’s hard to hear. It comes so quiet you mistake it for intrusion.
Love rarely looks the same, which is why it has so many faces and so many bodies and wears so many clothes.
Love listens, but also tells. It isn’t afraid to hurt but never wants to.
Love is strong but not like a soldier. Love is strong the way of a girl with hands on her hips defying a man. Love is strong the way of unarmed persons defying armed officers. Love is defiant.
Love is also receptive.
Love is a streetlamp showering sidewalk with faint light.
Love is a burned-out bulb but also the light switch in the on position.
Love is.
Hey, I’m Roman. I’m working on my debut novel, 20xx, a work in magical realism. I write on Substack.
Beautiful ❤️
“Love listens, but also tells.”
What a great line in a beautiful short piece. Thanks for sharing, Roman.