once upon a time there was a girl who loved love. she loved being a witness to love, watching people gaze at each other with so much affection that it caused warmth to spread, slowly, through her being. she indulged in the act of watching people stroll past with their fingers interlocked, not caring about whatever else was happening in the world besides the person they were holding on to. to her, love was when you could easily give your undivided attention effortlessly. when you don’t need to ache to listen, when you don’t need to stifle the yawn or the cough rising up your throat. love, she thought, was beautiful and genuine and one of the purest forms of human interaction she could ever have the honour of witnessing.

it was too bad, though, that the sights she grew up with was far from what she wanted love to be. the girl didn’t learn about love from her own reality; in fact, it was the complete opposite. she learned how to love from repeated instances of being the witness to the deterioration of love. the painfully slow, arduous, heart-wrenching destruction of something that used to be so sacred and cherished. to witness the two people you love the most in your life, lose the love they have for each other. that was one of the most confusing, perplexing situations she had ever come across. but feelings aren’t meant to be understood, anyway. it was no wonder that the girl turned away whenever she saw instances of fictitious broken families on television. it was too close to her own reality for her to be comfortable with it.

but the girl didn’t give up on love because she spent her whole life witnessing a love that came to an end. the world was full of happier people, desperately and wholeheartedly in love with other people. that was enough for her. that gave her the courage needed to keep her love for love tightly sealed within her. it was something that couldn’t be taken away, something that had to be wrapped up in soft cloth and kept away from the roughness of reality. she kept on watching people fall in love, and it brought a smile to her face every time. to see people live with a peculiar glow to them that couldn’t be developed even if they were in the pink of health. the glow of being in love; it gave life, energy, invigoration.