when love whispers through the universe

“Do you know the polaris? In ancient times, they used that star as a guide to know where the true north was. I think you are my polaris,” he said.

“Have you ever been in an empty street with solely one street light with a tornado of moths under it? God, it’s so magical. You are that. You are so magical to me.” He smiled it off as if he didn’t just say the most ‘I love you’ an I love you can be that I have ever heard. My heart couldn’t contain the happiness that it showed in my face. His eyes were glistening, and the wind wasn’t there, but love was.

Love can be anything. It can be the road that takes you out of town. It could be within the folktales your mother used to tell at night. It is the roots of your ancestors that led you here. It might be in your annotations of a book you read a long time ago. You could see it in the mirror if you looked closely enough. It must be in the music of Johnoy Danao. It is in the way you make coffee in the morning, despite the heaviness of waking up. Perhaps even waking up is love—the way you put yourself up in the world again even if you said to give up last night. Love is the air we breathe. It rides with the wind to find you. It is the sun that stares, albeit no one can stare back. Love will be there if you have the eyes to see it.

He is the epitome of love. We were sitting in front of a farm. He looked up at the sky and looked for the brightest star. “Do you know the polaris? In ancient times, they used that star as a guide to know where the true north was. I think you are my polaris,” he said. It felt like freedom to be with someone who could declare their love so easily. Alas, I felt embraced by the words that rolled out of his tongue.

The thing about love is that you become the people you admire. You pick up their slang, the way they walk, and the way they see things. I saw a brighter sky, and the world felt light. Love before was destruction, shame, and guilt—and maybe it was wrong. Yet love became the light at the end of the tunnel. It became peace. It became him, and it became right.

I knew he was love when I heard the laugh that came out of his mouth. He was love when he suffers and cares for me more than himself. I knew I was in love when I slept inside his shirt and drooled on his stomach, and then we laughed it off. I knew it when he looked at me with desire, and I knew it was love when he just looked. It was when I wondered if he was the one.

There is an unquestionable sexual tension when he wallows in permission before doing anything with me. The idea of having the right to a decision I couldn’t before, the option to say no, and the verdict to say yes. He gave me that.

We could go wherever we wanted. The city, the forest, heaven, or hell, and there would still be love. God, I could write so much of it, and still, my words won’t be enough to comprehend it the way it truly is. When you know, you know.

As long as I am alive, you are loved. Even after death, my love for you lingers in the way people look at the wonders of the world. In the way they look at the stars. You are my wonder of the world. You are my question, and you are also the answer. I am certain to be in love with a paradox; you are real and so unreal, and it’s all happening at once.

kahi!

Eight