The Failure of Dictionaries

She always found herself asking, what does it mean to be in love with someone? 
Does it mean I have to look past the imperfections, the flaws, the annoying habits? Can I not desire to fix anything about the object of my love, or to change things? Does he in turn, have to look past the cracks in my being, the scars? She was convinced she would never be able to be completely sure about something, so resolute in her decision. She was more confidant of wavering, swaying in the non-existent breeze, dancing to the beat of of other drums besides her own. Must I love someone just as much as they love me? How is this possible? For, the girl knew that there would always be favorites and preferences, even in places where they didn't belong. She would think: his name, I like the way it sounds but when you pair my first name with his last name, the sound is quite different. Almost too burlesque and yet too refined. It doesn't fit. Must our names share a perfect and unique sense of cohesiveness? Is this what love is?

Also, she would wonder on the possibility of change- what if by loving each other, so intensely that our love burns with that fire everyone always speaks of -what if a spark from that fire, lands on his shirt and burns his skin? He is now rendered different. Does our love shape us? Can we change our lovers, simply by loving them? Love, has that power to alter and shape shift its captives. Maybe she thought, if I start loving you, I won't really love you anymore because I'll be changing you. Perhaps by loving you so much, I'll actually learn to love you less and less. Perhaps.

Should I be able to pin point the exact reasons why I love him? Should our letters to each other span pages, without the repeating what we've already said or saying what we've already meant? Should my hand never grow tired when I sign the letter, love me. Do the thousands of repetitions of that word make it less or more than it should be?

And what if when he touches me, I remember someone else but only for a second. The imprint of another still on my lips; what if the old kiss collides with the new kiss and makes something extraordinary? Is it wrong to think about the old kiss with affection-must I think of it now as a foreign part of my past? Must I cast off these old imprints and memories, make them disappear? It is wrong to erase those you have loved from anything, for surely they have enlivened the air and brightened the colors and brought about the sensation of flying; to forget them would forever grey the memories you created together. Life is not a chalkboard but rather a specimen of something greater, our hearts have no erasers, only magnifying glasses.

 Our heart surges to absorb any outside force and then takes the force into the dark room. It exposes the force to light, transfers it to photo paper, blows up the image, frames it. Hangs up each individual moment, each feeling, each life, in chronological order, birth to death.  Love is the space between the two. Imagine, such a gallery of infinity. If time was measured in breaths taken, you wouldn't be able to see the whole gallery unless you ran through it. Unless you made the images a blur. But as you ran the gallery would keep expanding. Your life would build on itself and off you, for technically, it would be your hands hammering the nail into the wall of your heart and your hands straightening the framed picture and then your feet carrying you a few feet back so you could gage it's relative cohesiveness with the rest of your life and then it would be your brain telling you-"Yes, it looks perfect. Beautiful, so beautiful. Words fail. Life is not long enough to explain the intricacy of this picture." This picture is of your husband or wife. They are smiling almost directly at the lens. This is the moment before you kissed him or her for the first time. Fifteen pictures down-"You are wonderful. You make me want to be better than I could ever be." This is a picture of your child. Forever is not impossible here. Four pictures down, a new house. Seven more, you're older, grayer. Seventy more-"How could you leave me here with all these flowers? They're so colorless." You'll want to fast forward over this frame, it's to melancholy. Oh, wait frame 5,996,452-" I'm sorry I won't get to tell you my story. You're quite simply my best time. I do so love to hold you, like this." A grandchild. Stare at this one a while. Stop time for a bit. Don't pass anything, feel everything. You've got as much time as you'll give yourself. Your life is so meaningful. Frame 6,788,934-"I love you more than anyone could ever dream of loving you. Come home." This is the last frame. Every picture is breathtaking, if only life was measured in breaths.

Your life is gallery arranged by love. Love is a question composed of memories. Memories are butterflies. Butterflies are formed by the complementary strings of grace and fragility. Grace and fragility are fragments of a thing called beauty. Beauty is a lullaby whispered into the ears of the youth. The youth are idyllic sparks. Sparks are pieces of fire. Fire is forged from millions of dying stars. Dying stars are hope. Hope is light. Light is, most memorably a sunset or sunrise, depending on who you are (a sunset is a goodbye, a sunrise a hello-is your life a series of beginnings or endings?) There are exactly 344,456,932 sunrises and sunsets in your gallery. What makes them unique? You shared sunrise 4,453,321 with your favorite person in the world. Sunset 804, 234 was when you got your first kiss. Sunrise 344,456, 931 you were alone and it was the most beautiful. Sunset 344,456, 932, the finale, was the saddest for obvious reasons. You are tired. So tired. It's been like this for a while. Time to say goodbye. The curtain closes, the audience cheers for an encore that will never happen.

This is what dictionaries don't tell us about love:
That it ends just as everything must end.
That it is unexplainable.
That it is undefinable.
That it is vital.