Love

Bread that you kneaded and nurtured and made from scratch, that you pulled hot out of the oven cut too soon, and slathered in butter that’s not love.

Chocolate chip cookies that require a trip for milk barely cooked in the middle spread hot and gooey they are not love.

Homemade chicken soup, lasagnas and pot pies— delicious and nurturing and lovely to share, yes, yes, yes— but not love.

You can love making them, love the people you make them for you can even make them with love

but they’re food: amalgamations of fats and sugars. An entirely different kind of chemistry don’t conflate the two.

Love is holding hands in the parking lot Love is cuddling closer after you hit the snooze button Love is gluten-free.

But I don’t want to hurt your feelings, so I’ll eat this anyway— pass the milk.