what we don't talk about when we talk about love

what we talk about when we talk about love .. to blatantly steal raymond carver's title ... there isn't really much to say, really ... we can sit and discuss love endlessly and try to describe, as in the story, what real love is and what it isn't ... and the result will most likely always be the same--gibberish ... and we can quote from this or that book or even my favorite quote from paul's letter to the corinthians ... but it will not suffice and it will not go past an exercise in conjectures ... because ultimately the love we can ever talk about is the one we have experienced, or not! it always starts and ends there ... and everything else is just a topic of discussion ... we can talk about when we felt the most cared for, the most at peace, the most safe, the most looked after with care, the loving look, the loving smile, and we can talk about the joy in seeing someone and taking care of them, and thinking tenderly about them and desiring them even... and maybe even the pain we felt because of their pain ... and how their presence in our life made us different, changed how we experienced the world, how we wanted the world to be ... ... we can talk about those things and even more ... and that would perhaps be considered love ... but those are not things that we ever choose to talk about.