Dear Love,

You are the most glorious, coveted, conflicted, pernicious little thing. You are so precarious, slimy with tears and sweat and blood. No matter how tight our grip, you leak through the cracks in our fingers, like grains of sand. And you leave such unforgiving burns in your wake.

You’re kind of a jerk.

But when I consider this, it occurs to me that maybe its not you. Maybe its me. Maybe it’s all of us.

We dress and adorn you with definitions that never quite fit. We squeeze you in to them but you always peak out, reminding us.

You do not exist in the same universe that defines you. 

You do not fit inside the brain, which is rational. Nor even inside the heart, which is conditional and averse to pain.

You are beyond context.

You exist in and as a part of ourselves that can not be seen, nor touched, nor understood.

Love can only be known.

Love is a bridge, connecting souls. It may get ragged, heavy, worn, chipped.

But it can never be broken.

Love is a promise, made by our core, the bud, the soul, to forever attach to this other.

And because we attach at our core, the heart, the brain and the body are of no consequence.

They are superfluous. They can not hold up this sacred bridge. This bridge is made of the strongest part of us. The part that is eternal.

This promise can not be encapsulated in words because it is not made by the brain, nor the heart. It is a decision that happens in lieu of and in some cases despite those parts. It can only be communicated by the soul.

And sometimes, when we can quiet the world within us—fear, judgment, desire, thought—we can see it, reflected in the eyes.

“I love you.” does not suffice.  

But it is the best we have, when we yearn to share: I am thinking of our bridge.

~ Just one of many and perhaps all roads, leading to a bridge 

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Author: Jenny Spitzer

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: flickr