How to Love
Sandwiches and space
Love is a sandwich cut into triangles for easy consumption with the mayonnaise and mustard properly separated.
Love is leading you to bed when you fall asleep on the floor after work.
Love is doing what's best for someone else, even at your expense.
How do you love when your heart is full and you just want to show it?
When your beloved ends their long day by falling asleep wrapped around you,
How do you show them you love them,
That you want to hug them back and tell them the hard day is over?
Love is silence and stillness.
*
Love is listening to your endless stories
Love is driving the late shift on a road trip
Love is getting you water before bed because you always wake up dehydrated.
How do you love when you are empty and numb?
When you have the path laid out for each step to show your affection,
But you can't even love yourself enough to take a shower or eat when you're hungry?
Love is routines, created in joy and fulfilled in pain.
*
Love is putting bedtime off for just five more minutes because you missed them.
Love is putting bedtime off for just another five minutes because that aftershave is intoxicating.
Love is falling asleep longing for each other's touch, no matter how sweaty or cold they might be.
How do you love when no matter how much you hold them in your arms, you can't seem to find them?
When you can't tell if the smile in their face is hiding some pain and suffering you don't know about,
Or if they really are just tired, not of you, just tired.
When your mind won't stop asking if you did something wrong.
Love is persistent and kind and seeks what's best for others.
*
Love is waking up to hold you while you sob into their chest, mourning deaths that have yet to come.
Love is voicing your fears in a fair and simple way, only asking to be heard, not demanding
Love is looking for your beloved in your sleep, comforting while unconscious.
How do you love when the world feels broken and you need all of the space and none, no, no more, all at once?
When your pain hurts them in new ways,
Makes them feel like a burden
Instead of your rock?
Love is quiet and kind and unassuming
About the Creator
Janelle Polcyn
Writing is where I can think, but also where I can shut my brain off and just let the world disappear and the story consume me. Personal anecdotes, long-form fiction, micro-fiction, and things that make me smile.
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