My friend once asked me
On a warm spring evening
“What is love?”
I stumbled for words,
Trying to think of a sufficient response.
I bit my lip
Unable to find the right words.
She sees my hesitation and rewords her question:
“How do you know if you’re in love?”
I smile to myself and begin to dust off my memories of
A first crush,
A first love,
A first kiss,
“I don’t mean to start off with a cliché
But love is a cliché
Love is when butterflies start jumping around in your stomach
Whenever you pass him in the hallway,
Love is when you begin doing ridiculous things to get his attention
And when you, yourself are completely oblivious to your own actions.
Love is when you begin picking off the petals of every flower
Just to ask yourself if he loves you.
Love is when he appears in your dreams
And you wake up and hope that one day they’ll be reality.
You know that you’re in love if on the day he asks you out
You begin to sing and dance around the house.
It’s the feeling that causes you to care for another person
More than yourself
Love is when your heart is beating so fast
That you swear that he can hear its din,
Da dum—da dum—da dum
Love is when you begin to believe in fairytales
And you begin to believe that they really can come true.”
I finally exhaled
And played back my own advice in my head,
I turned to my friend and she smiled brightly
She reached into her coat pocket
And pulled out a dainty delicate daisy
That had a note attached to its stem
“Without you, I am nothing.
I love you”
I looked up from the note and assured her
“We were given:
Two hands to hold,
Two legs to walk,
Two eyes to see,
Two ears to listen,
But why only one heart?
Because the other was given to someone else,
For us to find.”