Do you know what it is to love? To cry in your solitude, alone, to sigh for him through every hour, and nurse an unfulfilled dream. Do you know what it is to love? To see his face everywhere, to sprinkle kisses across it in your mind, and call to him with a desperate cry. Do you know what it is to love? To feel yourself dying in the night, to swear tenderness from your heart to him, while he remains far from your passion. Do you know what it is to love? To feel your heart's trembling, to think you cannot even breathe, if he is absent, all things wither. Do you know what it is to love? To faint, to burn with pain, to let your soul gather dust, to wait in anguish, to weep. Do you know what it is to love? To rejoice that he still lives, to think of undressing before him, and let everything blaze with joy. I know what it means to love! Let nothing else exist in this world— except for him to bathe in caresses—burning even unto death!
# What It Is To Love To love is to become a beggar at the door of another's heart, palms open, asking for nothing in return except the smallest crumb of recognition— that you exist, that your existence matters in the architecture of their days. To love is to build a house from glass, knowing full well that stones will come, that weather turns harsh without warning, and still you arrange the furniture with care, still you sweep the floors each morning. To love is to speak in a language only two people understand, a dialect of glances and silences, of hands finding hands in the dark, of laughter that needs no explanation. To love is to become a fool gladly, to trade your armor for vulnerability, to let someone see the trembling beneath your skin, the small and frightened thing you've kept hidden since childhood. To love is to say *yes* to the knife, to know it will cut, has cut, will cut again, and to open your chest anyway, to offer what you have— imperfect, flawed, entirely human. To love is to plant a garden in winter, to tend something that may not bloom, to believe in spring with a faith that borders on madness, that borders on grace.
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