A man came to me in a dream and asked why we humans have so many words for love. His eyes held stars and his hair matched the color of a eclipse. As we sat together on the edge of the world, sand at our feet, I sighed.

Humans, I said, have a lot of words for everything. Why do you just want to know about love?

He said it was because love was something his people could not feel. That they sat in this void playing parts in realities we created. There was no love for them. He wanted to know why it was so important, important enough to be described by thousands of people in thousands of different ways.

I told him that the answer was simple: Love is thousands of different things. It has so many faces because it shows up to everyone differently. It can be painful, enamouring, joyless, satisfying, tormenting, maliable and even stiff. Nobody recieves love the same nor gives it the same, it was here before anyone could even comprehend it, old as time and even less understood. Thats why its so important.

He watched the sea stretch through the dream and asked me what I would give for love. I told him, not much, but that a lot of others would give everything. He was quiet for a second before he turned to me and gave me another question.

Do you think I can love?

Of course.

But what if I dont have anything to give?

Then just do.

The air around us stopped, he had never thought of that before.

Love is more than sacrifice, I said, and you have to be more than a lamb to the slaughter. What does love mean to you?

He turned away from me to the sun colored woman on the beach, her hair was as blue as the sea and stopped at her neck. When her eyes looked at us the ocean in them waved a hello. I nodded to her but the man with an eclipse as his crown was blushing stars up his cheeks. He watched her while frozen in place, she watched him with interest in her grin. I could hear the race of his heart as he whispered to me.

I think, he said, that love means im alive.