Who handcrafted the word love?
Who was the genius and the evil mastermind who defined that little, big, four-letter, disgustingly, horrifically beautiful, tone-deaf word?

It’s tiny and small, yet carries the weight of a thousand minuscule details and nonverbals that can only be photographed in supercut moments.

Love: An intense feeling of deep affection.
Deep: Extending far down from the top or surface.
Affection: A gentle feeling of fondness or liking.

How deep will it reach for me? How high is the surface that this affection climbs from? Does it fall? Does it climb down?
If love were human, would it climb its way down — strategically placing each foot into a crevice that can hold its weight?
With the veins in its hands pulsing, sweat dripping from its body.

Woe is me, I say before I go to sleep, that all the innocent glimpses we’ve stolen from each other, at each other, were just figments of my fantasy. I want to believe our eyes flutter away from one another, hidden in the noise of a crowded room.

Love: What a fun word to say in a drunken bathroom to a stranger you’ll never see again.

Isn’t it strange? That of all the lives you’ve lived and all the loves you’ve known, the most you’ll be remembered for is how and what you loved. And maybe every soul we’ve ever loved will be there in our remembrance.

Maybe we’re all famous when we’re gone — remembered, still loved — and that is the legacy we leave behind.

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Maybe that’s why I keep breaking the things that mean the most to me. Why I sabotage what feels sacred.

I’ll never know the full capacity of the hurt I’ve caused — or the quiet damage I’ve done like a child with a fragile toy, unaware that once it breaks, it may get fixed, but it will never be the same.
Maybe I deserve the cracks I carry, so I can learn how not to shatter someone else the way I’ve shattered myself.

Love hurts, but it also breathes.
Love kills, but it also resurrects.
Love lies, but it also wraps around you, slows the chaos, and holds a beating heart steady — even if it’s just for a moment.