Love Hurts

 Love hurts.

That's what I learnt when I saw pain in my mother's eyes when she talked about my father.

“It was a beautiful day.

The birds are singing and flowers are blooming”

But it was wound in her eyes as she spoke.

Love hurts.

That's what I learnt when I saw the rooks she built collapsing.

Tight woven bricks crumbling onto the floor.

Tight woven bricks that were so fragile it was unable to stand.

Love hurts.

That's what I learnt when I saw my father with his new wife.

My… my new mother?

It was tightness in my chest and squeeze of my heart.

And I thought,

Oh, so love hurts.

Love hurts. 

Because it was red on Maria's blanket as she bled to death.

Love hurts. 

Because it was the vehicle that I rode as I carried her to the hand of God.

Love hurts. 

Because I felt tightness in my chest when I saw my wife sleeping on the bed we shared.

Because I felt like combusting when she looked my way.

Because I love, I love, I love her so much it feels suffocating.

Because, oh, God, is love supposed to feel like this?

Take me to Your hand and I would die again without her gaze.

God.

The sun was scorching hot compared to the warmth she shone on my weary days.

God.

Love hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts so much.

But give me more of it.

Give me more.

Love hurts.

But it heals when I see our child playing in the yard.

A smile wide on their face as they built the rooks from the sand in the playground.

Told them, “Be careful with the sands!” before it got into their pretty little eyes.

Laughter echoed in the blue sky, and my wife leaned on my shoulder, carrying our youngest.

And at that very moment, love doesn't hurt anymore.

It was levitating. Mending. A blanket thrown to my barbed wire.

And still,

I want more.

More.

More.

More.