What Keeps Us Alive

Love Is

Love is the smile that survives sorrow,
the thread that binds two hearts
when the world would rather tear them loose.

Love is hope—
hope that my children will grow into their skin
and wear it like sunlight,
whatever shade it shines.

Love is the quiet devotion
of caring for my baby sister,
of holding small hands
through the wide, wondering world.

Love is moonlight
moving softly through the dark.
Love is the ocean’s wave—
returning, returning,
never forgetting the shore.

Love is blue, and red, and pink,
all colors, all seasons,
all the living light of being.

Love is coming home.
Love is family.
Love is animals with gentle eyes.
Love is Black Lives Matter.
Love is justice with a beating heart.
Love is the force that made us.
Love is the gift of making one another stronger.

Love is warm,
soft as a blanket,
fierce as truth.
Love is when two souls meet
and recognize themselves in each other.

Love is my mother—
my heart in human form.
Love is my grandma.
Love is my lovely pit bull,
loyal and full of grace.

Love is infinite.
Love is reaching for dreams together,
hands clasped in the dark,
trusting the dawn will come.

Love is me.
Love is everything.
Love is ice cream melting in the summer sun,
a jungle alive with wonder,
the fire at the center of the earth
keeping us warm.

Love is you.
Love is chocolate and laughter,
truth and learning,
school and home and sunny days.

Love is the center of the heart.
Love is caring for myself.
Love is what makes us human.
Love is what makes us whole.
Love is hard.
Love is beautiful.
Love is sharing.
Love is secrecy and trust,
the keeping of deepest things
and the staying after.

Love is a soul.
Love is life.
Love is for all.

Love is love.
And love, at last,
is the name we give
to everything that keeps us alive.