What is love?

"If you asked me what love is, I would not tell you about butterflies. Not anymore."

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"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." — Lao Tzu

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If you asked me what love is,
I would not tell you about butterflies.
Not anymore.
Butterflies are far too small
for what happened to me.

I would talk about probability.
Against every sensible prediction,
I found you.

Or perhaps we found each other.

As if two wandering stars
looked up one night
and discovered they had been
following the same invisible map all along.

Love, to me,
is the bewilderment of that.

The inability to stop asking:

How?

Love is missing someone
while simultaneously feeling grateful
they exist at all.

I want to hear your voice
grow older.
To learn every version of your face.
Stand beside your victories.
I want to survive your sorrows with you.

Love is the terrifying realization
that forever has stopped sounding ridiculous.

Not guaranteed.
Not promised.
Simply desired.

Love is trusting someone
with the softest parts of yourself.
The frightened parts.
The grieving parts.
The irrational parts.

And being met there
with tenderness.

Love is knowing they could leave.

Knowing they are mortal.

Knowing the universe
offers no guarantees whatsoever.

And finding yourself brave enough
to love them completely anyway.

Maybe that is the closest definition I have.
Not a feeling.
Not even a promise.
A recognition.

A quiet, soul-deep knowing.

The certainty that among all the people
I could have met,
among all the lives
I could have lived,
among all the futures
that might have unfolded,
I would still turn toward you.

Again.
And again.
And again.

As naturally as rivers find the sea.
As naturally as flowers turn toward light.
As naturally as my heart,
which somehow recognized yours
before I ever understood why.

Come here.
Sit beside me.
Tell me about your day.

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I am already fantasizing about our wedding. Unashamed. Impressed. In love.