my mother always used to say when you find someone you love,

you’ll know.

It’s a warm fuzzy feeling, like that white blanket

you throw over your shoulders when you're cold

or when you pop a toasted, golden marshmallow

into your mouth

once you finish roasting it

over the large flames

of a brilliantly colored bonfire.

It makes you smile bigger that your first trip to Disney World,

where you met Cinderella and Mickey Mouse and thought

this really was a fantasy,

a dream come true,

or when you first put a paintbrush on a canvas,

the even strokes of color filling your senses

and covering your brain with wild ideas

and perfect dreams.

But,

she also told me that I was too young to understand,

that someday I would.

That thirteen, fourteen,

maybe fifteen,

was still too young to know

that feeling inside.

Well,

this could be a problem.

Because here I am,

fourteen years of age

standing in front of someone

that gives me that feeling.

And that someone

is you.

But that can’t be love,

because my grandma once told me

that it takes years of crushes,

and dates,

and heartbreaks,

to find someone that actually makes you

as happy as this.

But I’ve never felt happier.

    Or safer.

        Or more comfortable.

But,

my father once told me that love is stupid.

That it’s just a trick of the eye,

    the brain,

        the heart.

That it gets your hopes up for something,

just to be left behind,

with nothing,

but a broken heart

and endless tears.

Before it starts over again,

before you meet someone else

and trick yourself into that too

and the cycle is never ending,

once you have fallen one time.

Just stay away from it, he said,

ignore the signs, ignore the people

who have kind words for you

and who wrap their arms behind your back

or intertwine your fingers with theirs.

It’s not worth it.

But what if it is.

Maybe he was wrong about it all.