Stopwatch Children

Love to me is. . .

Love to me is. . .

I remember when I was younger telling my little sister she didn't know what real love was, looking back on it now neither did I. I don't really know now, but I will try to word something so completely raw into something understandable.

Love isn't kind or soft; it's like a tornado sucking you in until it's got you. Love is horrible and awful but it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. There will never be a better image than of two people so completely in love that world around them doesn't seem to exist.

Love is the sweetest lemonade and the most bitter pill to swallow. It's me trying to talk to my ex and feeling broken when I remember how badly I screwed up that love. Love is one of the hardest things I've had to face; even worse than telling my dad I broke something he now has to pay for. Love had really bad timing, and I mean really bad. Love was me messing up so many times but never getting a second chance.

Love is something amazing and not hard to find, hard to hold onto but never hard to find. Love is feeling vulnerable, needing someone you barley know. Love is having so many questions but never any answers. Love is fighting and saying things you don't mean.

Love is all the brightest reds and the darkest blues; it's that really bad photo of you that your parents hung on the wall. Love is trying to believe that anything is possible, like believing that dragons really do exist, and you can fly as long as you think happy thoughts. Love is making chocolate wishes because you're still a kid at heart.

Love is being there when no one said you had to. Love is being that shoulder to cry on and trying not to cry when your friends tell you all the pain they've been through.

Love is something complex but simple in so many ways. Love is using all the memory on my camera to film my cousins teaching each other how to dance, and we were really bad. Love is sleeping in the back yard because you wanted to see the stars. Love is scaring Arianna and Michael but feeling bad when I saw them crying.

Love is magical and special. The kisses you get goodnight and telling your dad you're afraid of the dark . . . still. Love is waking up to your best friend dancing around your room. That song everyone in the car hates but you sing along anyway, now that's true love.

Love is in the world, it may not be presented in the best of ways but it's always there. Love is the simple things no one notices, like the way my house goes still when my dad gets home. The hot chocolate that Granny made us in the winter and the ice cream she gives us in the summer, that's love.

Love is being scared to death at three in the morning when you have a nightmare but your mom coming to make sure the monsters aren't real. Love is painting a picture on a five foot canvas just to show someone they inspired you. Love is waking up at six AM when your little so you can let your best friend inside just to go back to bed with them on the opposite end and sleep until eleven.

Love is my family and friends and the memories we have together and so many more to come. You have to know he loves you when he'd do anything for you; Grandpa getting the generator, setting up the TV and watching with us because the power went out. Love is sitting in the basement on Christmas Eve eating all the candy you can find and telling stories of past holidays. Love is seven people pilled on the bottom bunk snoring so loud you swear your ear drums are going to burst. Love is talking about all the memories we have of when we were small and the games that make no sense now but were the best to play back then.

Love is all the little things, but then again it's pretty big. Love is skating on the lagoon with Jessica no matter how terrible we both are. Granny getting up and cooking for an army to feed us breakfast before school every morning. Love is tip-toeing to your side of the bed before yelling in your ear, and being hot under these damn sheets but staying that way because it makes you smile.

Love to me is the story of Zachary Mathews, the boy who knew. Love; is the way Daphne looked at Truemen, and the way Charlie loved Sam, it's the way the Miles loved Alaska, the way Mina loved Vlad, the way my mom loves my dad and the way Jacob sees us all. Love to me is what Jamie felt when he helped Rena, the way Romeo loved Juliet, the way Mss. Piggy loves Kermet, and the way Cas can't get Anna off his mind.

It's always hard, love; the way Augustus loved Hazel, Marko watching Celia, and Evan loving Derek. It may be hard but nothing will stop it, you can try but you'll get sucked into the tornado too. Like the waves kissing the shore always coming back no matter how many times it's pulled away.

I might never be one hundred percent on what love really is, but I know experience helps. I know we all love in different ways in our own broken places. We live the way we think is good and we take the risk of going after our dreams.

Love's not easy; but why would you ever want it to be?

Zp.O