What Love Is And What Love Is Not

Noah Hinton

Love is not a bargain.

It should not be compared. It should not get treated as an offer that can be withdrawn at any second. Overfilled with million clauses and conditions. Usually small lettered at the end of a contract signed by only one part.

Love is not perfect.

Love is not always convenient, proper or elegant. Sometimes love is sweaty and salty, ordinary and boring; sometimes it is bitter and toxic. It can be mind-blowing and yet, the source of all disquietude. Sometimes it is a mystery, an anagram. Sometimes, love can only communicate in Morse while you are too busy daydreaming with headphones on.

Love is not a side dish.

Love is the fulfilling meal you have after a hard day, when you arrive home, starving in a soul-deep level. Love is the comfort food, the spicy food, fast and junk food. Love is the essential amino acid that keeps you healthy and that greasy food that clogs your heart. Love is poison and nutrition.

Love is essential and yet, not the essence.

Love cannot replace hate or lust. It neither can veil pain or hunger. It can keep you going, make you bolder but in the end, love is a bonus.

I imagine being loved as something like Pluto regaining its status of a planet. It is having people realize your worth, while you find out the secrets hidden in that vault deep within you.

Love is darkness and light, fire and drizzle, lava and waterfalls. Love is peaceful and chaotic. It’s unanswered questions, messages to the vacuum, surprises and disappointments. Love is the cure to its own disease.

Love is being at the cliff-hanger of your favorite book; you want more but fear the morrow. You don’t know if you’ll survive the fall, but that naïve voice in your head tells you it’s worth it to take the risk.

You jump.

Love is not free falling without a parachute, hoping strong arms will catch you. Love is impulsively jumping from a plane hand in hand. You know that everything is less frightening with your fingers intertwined.

Loving is not cleaning your hard drive to make sure it has enough space to settle. Loving is like playing Jenga. It is that rare collection of jigsaw puzzles that you arrange to fit. That game of Twister in which you contort your body to accommodate another because none of you wants to lose.

Love is not sacrificing; love is adapting.

Love is not abandoning what you want for the sake of what you love or vice versa. It is not choosing; it is trusting that Love is another category altogether.

Love is shifting on the bed and offering a blanket. It is that last slice of pizza you split in half because both of you want to try it. Love is a welcome party with no set time to end.

To love is not to put yourself as a bargaining piece, but to know that whatever any of you want, you can do it together.

Love is not the heart, but the skin that shields and warms your body. You can only live without it for so long – it heals, it regenerates, it scars.

Love is not an ultimatum; love is a motive. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

A spark ignites my feelings, so I write. The result is ashes.

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