The Languages of Love

I stepped into Love's presence,
unsure if I had been summoned
or if my soul had simply
wandered here on its own.
Love sat before me, ancient,
eternal, dripping in something older
than time itself.
It did not blink. It did not
rush. It just was.
"You came," Love said.
"Finally."

"I had questions," I admitted
"I know," Love said. "Sit."
The air around us shifted.
Love leaned in,
its voice less a sound, more a
vibration, something I felt in my bones.

"You think I have only one
voice," it said.
"You think I speak in poetry
and soft things,
but I have never belonged to
just softness.
"I am fire. I am water. I am
wind. I take shape, I take form.
I take what is given and return it remade."

"Teach me," I said. "Teach me
how to hear you."
Love exhaled, and I swear the
walls breathed with it.
"I speak in many tongues," it said.

"I speak in touch-"
the grace of fingers, the pull of bodies,
the weight of a hand steadying
you when your knees give out.
"I am the way a mother presses
her lips to the temple of her sleeping child,
the way lovers pull air from
each other's lungs,
the way a stranger lifts a
fallen bird back into its nest.

"I speak in words-"
in the poetry of a confession,
in the prayers whispered for
someone else,
in the way your name sounds
when spoken by someone who
truly sees you.
"I am in every 'be safe'
that really means 'come back to me.'
I am in every 'I'm fine'
that is begging to be heard."
"And when words fail?" I asked.
"Then I speak in silence."

"I am in the quiet between two
souls who understand each other
without speaking.
"I am in the stillness of a
hand on your back
when grief has stolen your voice.
"I am in the pause before an 'I
love you'- and the echo after it's gone."

I closed my eyes, feeling Love
settle into my bones.
"But Love" I said,
"Why does the world feel so
full of pain?"
Love sighed, not in sorrow,
but in knowing.
"Because you have been trained
to believe that I only come wrapped in ease.
"That I only arrive as the
thing you wanted,
never as the thing you needed."

"You call me love when I feel
good. You curse my name when I come
as a lesson.
But I do not serve your comfort.
I serve your becoming."
"So heartbreak-" I started.
"Is love, too," Love interrupted.
"Just wearing a mask
you do not recognize."
"And loss?"
"Still love," it said.
"Because nothing real is ever lost.
I do not vanish. I transform."

Love's gaze did not waver.
"Hate is love that has been wounded.
Fear is love that has forgotten
itself.
"Even war-" Love's voice did
not flinch- "is love turned inside out.
A hunger to belong, twisted
into conquest.
A longing for power, poisoned by fear."

"Even in it's most violent
forms, war is love distorted-
men so desperate to be remembered,
they carve their name into the
bones of the earth."
I flinched.
"That can't be love."
"Then you do not yet understand
me," Love said.
"Even fire, when uncontrolled,
can burn a house to the ground.
But fire itself is not the enemy."

"And evil?" I whispered.
Love tilted its head.
"Evil is love that has been starved.
It is love, so afraid of
itself, that it becomes a shadow.
"Even the darkest heart
still beats because of me.
Even the cruelest soul
still craves what I am."
"So why do you allow it?"
Love's eyes burned.
"I do not allow anything.
I flow. I move.
I do not force."

"And that is why I am so often
misunderstood.
To force is not my way.
To burn down choice is not my way.
"I allow even the lost
the right to remain lost
until they are ready to see."

The room darkened.
Not in a way that scared me-
in a way that made everything sharper.
Love's voice deepened,
as if pulling me through time.
"I am older than your religions.
Older than the first language
ever spoken."

"I existed before sound, before breath.
I was here when the first star was born
and I will be here when the last one fades."
"I am the force that makes the sun rise,
the rhythm that tells the tides when to pull back."

"I am gravity. I am time.
I am the glue between all things.
I do not begin or end.
I only change shape."
Love looked through me now.
"You are not separate from me."

"You were not born to find love.
You were born to remember
that you already are it."
"You are not a body searching
for love-
you are love wearing a body."

The room began to fade,
but Love's voice remained.
"Listen deeply," it said
"And you will hear me everywhere."

And I swear- I have been listening ever
since.

-Branden Collinsworth