Love.
The color red unfurls before your eyes, perhaps topped by pink hearts and valentines,
boxes of chocolates and a dozen roses,
Hallmark holidays and cheesy movie lines,
holding hands and tonsil hockey.
You see warm fuzzy feelings and superficial exploitation.
I see a tree.
Roots nuzzled deep and wide into the warm confines of the Earth,
A single cell, a seed,
You were born of a mother’s love,
the root of nourishment that planted you firm, gave you breathe,
growing ever wider and deeper as you soared to the sky.
It was love that gave you life.
It was love that held you to the ground as you were whipped in the eye of storm. 
Desire.
Desire is the leaves that dangle off the tips of your branches.
A seasonal flash falling at the tips of your being,
a flattering shade of green only for a season before fading brown and lifeless,
leaving you,
bare and exposed in the bite of winter to decay at your feet.
Desire is a snake.
A boa constrictor purring soft and sultry into your ear
its smooth skin lights up yours in a feeling of startlement,
a thumping heart you mistake for the steady beat of love,
It tightens around your neck, stealing your air, turning your mind black in its grasp.
It blinds you.
It leaves you when the light in your eyes has faded, and there is nothing left of your body to take.
You are broken.
It sneaks into the comfort of your bed and leads you astray in the cover of night.
Love is your bed.
A soft cushion and worn sheets.
A constant.
A foundation.
It knows the fit of your body and swaddles every curve.
I hears your three a.m. thoughts, four a.m. pillow talks.
It feels the weight of every sleepless night and catches the tears you cannot bear to let anyone else see.
In the morning, love is the soft white sheets that wake you in a gentle embrace,
a warm capsule against cold air that holds comfort and cozy feelings.
When the day has drained you to an empty shell, your bed is your sanctuary,
your restoration,
love fills your body, makes you whole again.
Desire is futile and infantile
A yearning that never ceases,
A thirst that is never quenched.
It is the foundation our paper society.
Paper is money.
Paper can grant our every wish.
But paper does not give power to our desires,
Our desires give power to the paper.
We are not corrupt by money,
We are corrupt by our desires,
A feast that leaves us starving.
Starving.
Desire is when we empty our bellies of our self worth in exchange for nothing.
The idea of something else.
Take yourself back to that day in the mirror.
You stood there bare, exposed to every part of yourself.
You looked at yourself in the mirror, and you chose desire,
You chose envious pangs at luscious hair, and little noses.
You told yourself “you are worthless”.
You wished for something else.
You wished you could be smarter or prettier, something someone could admire.
You traced the bulging outline of your nose, and trimmed it down to a perfect size in your mind.
You looked at yourself up and down in the mirror and you scathed yourself.
You loathed every flaw.
You pinched and pulled and tucked and sucked in all the spaces you desired to rid yourself of.
They snapped back with vengeance, reverberating the truth.
Desire is a one way emotion. Out.
You cannot desire what you already have.
If you are surely anything, you are all your own.
Go back to the mirror.
Choose love.
Choose kind words and forgiveness at the hand of your tender flesh.
The crinkles around your eyes define them with laughter.
The rolls over your stomach fill the hug of your favorite person.
Desire keeps you a slave.
Love is your Emanuel.
An Emancipation proclamation from the voices in your head.
Choose love.
Choose not to bear the weight of your existence in the leaves that will surely fall,
Thin and flimsy,
What will cave under your intensity, and leave you thankless.
The leaves will fly away when the wind blows hard.
No, look at yourself and sink down.
Below the surface, beneath the grass,
bear your weight in the roots.
Each shoot a teacher, a compliment, a best friend,
Someone that knew you deeply and told you to soar higher.
Love is not fleeting, it is forever.
It is our foundation, our rest, our refuge,
Our mother, our lover, ourselves.
You are not the leaves.
You do not break under the pressure of the hard times in life.
You are the roots.
You are made of love you’ve been given.
You are made of love.