“Is it pretty? Love?”

I shook my head and laughed. “Never.”

I fell in love with a work of art, and he breathed life into these dilapidated lungs. I used to pour yellow paint into my lungs and stuff my mouth with daisies to try to be happy from within. He took my hands and taught me how to let go of dying daisies. I pointed at the sun and told him that he was my sunshine, and when it rose in the sky, he’d send me a letter.

“If I could hold you, I bet I’d find a few thorns. They’d cut, but the flower, you, are so worth it. When I learn where to grab, I won’t be cut at all. I think you’d be my favorite flower. I’d plant a whole garden full of you, but one is more than enough,” he wrote.

I told him our love was like a tornado: strong but deadly. It became everything.

Falling in love wasn’t logical. It was never a choice. When I fell in love, love was what I feared most. I’d spent a year stabbing every piece of love I felt to death until it no longer hurt. I didn’t see love in my parents’ eyes, and so I thought I could never see it in anyone else’s.

He planted roses in the crevices of my soul so my happiness couldn’t slip through the cracks. Sometimes the thorns hurt, but all good things in life do. He was my rose, and I his, and together we destroyed each other in the most beautiful way possible. I don’t know if we’ll rise again, but the dreams never fade.

We picked names for four kids but hoped for two. We spent hours on the phone describing the way we’d decorate our home, how I’d plant rainbow flowers in wall pots and how he’d fill our shelves with fantasy book series and video games. I think we both imagined at that moment the way our lips would feel against each other’s, the way his arms would feel around my waist and mine around his. I imagined the way I’d teach him how to do the robot dance while cooking brownies. And – and here’s the thing:

I thought it was real.

Love makes you think that your dreams will happen, that your kids will be born, that I’d teach him how to swim, that he’d teach me how to play “Yu-Gi-Oh!” and “Skyrim,” that we’d hold our child in our arms while reading her Pride and Prejudice with Transylvanian accents to crack her up.

I thought we’d listen to music so loud we’d blow the speakers and dance our way to happiness, but we blew each other up instead. Our love is too strong to contain and – oh god – I’m exploding.

I’m in love with a work of art, but sometimes, love requires bleeding.