It is Love

It lives rent free in the twinkle of my students’ bright, wide eyes and calls their young impressionable minds “home” as it redecorates their thinking and gives away all things undeserving of taking up space to bad will. ​

Every time my aunty prays, it slowly but surely sneaks out in her voice like loose honey making it’s way down from the top of a mason jar on its journey to kiss my kitchen countertop. 

My mother diligently cooks it in her food consulting the whisper of her heart instead of a measuring cup as if it is the secret ingredient that makes her recipes inimitable. 

It can be spread as gently as the wings of a butterfly through the uttermost simple contact of a well meaning stranger or it can be as contagious as the laughter of your best friend when warmly embraced by a tender companion. 

Remarkably, for every mall that exists, there is a store that unknowingly sells it in their fragrance department as you catch a hint of it nonchalantly passing by and begin to generate a mental photo album of family members life kissed goodbye without your permission, relationships time and distance have overpriced, and anyone whose scent still lingers in the oxygen that bountifully remains within you.