When I say "I love you"...

I'm trying to say much much more that these three little words,

but love is the strongest word that the human dictionary gives me so...

I settle. I settle to minimize my feelings to a four letter word

that has lost meaning over time to the human heart.

For all the non-believers, the quitters, and the pity parties,

love is nothing more than a sign of weakness.

To them, love is a bouldar weighing on their shoulders.

Love is a last resort to the sickness we call lonliness.

Love is a wave of emotions to drown in. Love is an excuse

to stay the way they are and a refusal to change.

My mother once told me, "Love can be a curse and blessing.

Sugar, it is what you make it. Now make us a cup of coffee."

I could only laugh because as a child, you really don't understand

how to respond to what an adult says so you agree and move on.

As I made that cup of coffee, I pictured myself as the princess

in a castle waiting to be rescued like in all those fairy tales we read as children.

My daddy would say to me, "Babydoll, I'm the best prince that ever rescued your mama."

My mom would smack her lips, turn and say,

"Baby, don't let your prince come looking for you. Go looking for him.

The poor thing is probably stuck in a tree somewhere."

We would all laugh. I didn't really understand that metaphor.

But I look back and realize that there are not many Prince Charmings left in the world.

The world's maidens are falling over the crooks and theives.

So Love has become a pigment of imagination to many.

Love has become a mirage that makes us jump for joy

until we realize what we felt wasn't love.

Love is a thin line that divides hate and much more.

SIx months after my parent's six-year anniversary, they divorced.

They both had princesses in the next town.

I never thought my mama would like girls. Never really made sense.

As I said, love has changed over time. I'm getting off track.

Like I was saying, I have settled for the definition of love.

"A binding force that keeps people together." It makes me think of glue.

The kind of glue that we used to sit in our little Pre-K chairs and

put on our fingers to stick together so we could pull them apart and peel it off.

That is the thing. Glue is easy to remove. Glue isn't strong enough

to hold through the hard times.

It is barely strong enough to hold through the smooth ones.

We have surfed the waves of heartbreak and floated with the wind of harsh words

so we have survived the harshest of times.

We have given eachother parts of us that we can never take back.

Our "Love" is like a gunshot wound scar. Some people can pretend it is not there,

but it never goes away. We will always feel it there...

on our skin and buried deep beneath the thin layer of flesh

that divides our most delicate from the tragedies of the world.

It is funny how the world works. Everybody has to settle for

something less than what we want. I settle to say "I love you"

when love doesn't amount to what I feel.

It feels as if a part of you has latched onto me

so that when I am mad or sad or just simply comtept,

you appear in my mind to make everything disappear.

I will settle for whatever you are willing to give me

because sometimes settling means getting exactly what you want.

So I settle for love.