A Test to Love

It's like when you get those multiple choice scantron tests back in high school; a history exam just to make it plain. There are those questions on the test that are straightforward.  If you studied the proper material, bam it's done. Then there are the ones you can narrow down to two answers.  A bit tricky, but you manage to be fairly confident on it. But there's always that one question. The one that looks like it was written in another language.  You stare at it blankly for a whole two minutes wondering how in the hell your supposed to figure it out.  You circle some words, try to see a pattern on the scantron sheet, or close your eyes trying to land on a choice hoping for something to jump out. Nothing does, and the rest of the test looks impossible, even if you were convinced the beginning was cake. Nothing feels right after that stumble, so you circle it and decide to come back to it. You finish the rest of the test but not completely, because you know it's missing a piece. So you force every inch of your  brain to strain for a solution to that little question,  no matter how dismal the odds, because you know, even if you may never be sure it's right, it is your fortitude and your strength to find an answer that justifies the means. Even if your wrong. Even if the answer doesn't jump up. Even if it's not until you get the results back that you feel you need  the comfort.  That is the journey of love; from cradle to grave. You feel crazy when you come across that person, completely unprepared for the feelings that strike you. You try to convince yourself that it's just a problem, like everything else, even though you know it's far different than the rest. So you leave it, but deep inside love constantly yearns it's return waiting to twist your mangled heart again. So you come back and find it, you fall in love and then you take that journey; and in that journey is the fight. The one you know you may never find an answer for, but continue to be prepared for when the need arises, because you are so afraid to leave love in silence that you will do anything to put a dot on it. That's when you know it's worth something.  After the dust settles and you hand in your papers. Not just that you found a solution for now, but that you fought to keep them with you, and they know you fought because they can see the scribbled hash marks on the page or the thick smudges that bleed deep through the paper. They know you are in love, and that your commitment to it is stronger than all your answers.

Who are we to say we are if have lived without love.  Are we to say we lived at all?