Real love does not require you to bow your head.

It does not keep a ledger.

It does not hold your documents hostage or teach you lessons or turn your own fear of losing it into a leash.

It just wants to know you landed safely, and that the trip was wonderful, and that you are, wherever you are, all right.

I had spent years starving beside a full table, unable to tell that the food was made of paper.

It took losing the whole banquet to taste, again, what a single true bite was like.