love ability

Love Ability

By: Emily Cashour

I wonder what makes a person loveable.

Is it something about what they share with the world? What they allow the world to see about them, whom they publicly admire, the portions of their talents they are willing to showcase?

Is there something about the way they smile at exactly the right times, or something about when they mourn in convenient empathy?

How about the way they smile as a polite hello, or shake hands and wish for a pleasant tomorrow?

I wonder if it is something everyone can see, if that’s the secret that makes someone loveable.

Or to fall in love with someone, do you have to understand the side of them they keep hidden from the world? Is there something about the way they smile and look down at the ground, sharing a secret with it that everyone is dying to know but cannot seem to understand?

In order to love someone, do you have to love the way they sit when they are alone, or admire the junk food they crave?

Do you have to smile at the pen that simply kisses the paper, nothing more, or are you only allowed to love the epic masterpiece?

How many times are you allowed to smile to yourself as you picture them deep in humble intelligent thought until you realize that they are unbelievably loveable and you are irrevocably drawn to them?

When they absentmindedly chew on their pen cap, is this when you imagine your lives together? Do you wish your lives to be as tangled as their messy hair?

Or is it even possible to love someone simply for their flaws?

To swoon when they let their façade slip, laugh at their simple misconceptions. How much time are you allowed to spend counting the freckles between their shoulder blades, each one brightening your smile and adding weight to their make-up bag?

It’s lovely to understand their humanity. To realize that even the best and brightest can make dumb mistakes. When they cry at a movie or grow angry with an outcome, are you allowed to nod in agreement, loving them all the more?

How many wrinkles may you caress until they understand and laugh with you to make ones anew?

How much salty seawater will you brave until you dry your eyes and blink in awe?

Perhaps being loveable is a combination, as all good things are.

The way they cheer and wave makes you beam. The way they lower their arms and clench something in their pocket clings in your mind. The sweat wiped from their nervous brow lets you into their world.

The way they poke and prod until your feelings burst from within.

 The way the key to their hope chest fits neatly in your palm.

Their dreams small enough to be coherently fulfilled.

I wonder what it is that makes a person loveable. Maybe it is just that humanity is perfectly romantic?

To find love in this world is a part of human nature and human nature is powerfully consistent.