What is love?
If he had been asked sooner, when he was still a child, he might’ve said that love was the warm, orange feeling in his chest when he sat in between his dad and brother, listening to his fantastical stories. Bundled up by the fire, hidden from the falling snow outside, laughing at all the antics the heroes got up to on their way to their happy ending. Or he might’ve said that it was the breathless laughter as he ran down the halls, avoiding his brother’s much longer legs and pretending that he wasn’t going easy on him.
A little older, and he would say that it’s a sweet taste that lingered in his mouth like the fried treats they sold in festivals near their home; warm and soft against the chilly wind, and taking advantage of the few times when they were all together again. Or maybe he would say that love was gentle and ever-present, all-encompassing, like the smell of plum blossoms. Even now the lonely plum tree his mom planted stands in the garden, its scent spreading like a ghost in the wind.
Now, when he thinks of love, he sees blood and the pain cutting through his chest makes him lose his breath. He remembers screaming, metal crashing on pavement, he remembers being thrown out of the way, always protected, always the one left behind.
Love and grief twist together into guilt, until he doesn’t know when one ends and the other begins. It’s love, until it’s not, until he’s heaving, trying to get the image of a twisted corpse out of his mind until he can breathe again. It’s grief, until it’s not, and he’s begging to a god he doesn’t believe in to take him instead, repeating over and over that it was his fault into an empty house with no one to hear.
He can’t remember love without remembering everything after anymore, without breaking and cursing the empty halls.
Once upon a time, his life had been filled with words of love. Now, the only time he hears words of love are in his dreams from the mouth of a dead man.
Katie Tran is a junior attending high school in California where she spends her time writing in whatever free time she can manage. For some reason, she can’t seem to write anything light-hearted?