They told me love was a one-on-one sport.
Told me to find the one—
as if a single person could hold the weight
of everything I have ever been.

As if healing was a private contract
and not a group project
with sticky notes, second chances,
and mismatched folding chairs
around a dinner table no one was supposed to survive long enough to set.

Let me tell you the truth:
We built this love ourselves.

No script.
No savior.
Just people,
tired but trying.
Bleeding but still offering a seat.

We did that.

The system did not save us.
The sermons did not see us.
The textbooks did not teach us.
We found each other
in the cracks.
We wrote new names for family
in marker
and dared the world to tell us we were not real.

Community love is not delicate.
It is duct tape and forgiveness.
It is rides to court dates.
It is shared keys and emergency snacks.
It is covering rent when nobody’s asking.
It is “You crashed here last night—what do you want for breakfast?”

That is not soft.
That is survival.
That is holy.

Love by community says:
“I do not need your perfection.
I need your presence.”
It says:
“I saw you fall—
and I stayed.”

This is the kind of love
that does not care about your titles.
It cares if you showed up
when it was raining.
It cares if you brought soup
when the flu hit the house.
It cares if you knew how to sit with silence
without needing to fill it.

We built this love ourselves.

And we did it while being
queer, disabled, grieving, undocumented,
neurodivergent, formerly incarcerated,
underpaid, overlooked—
but never undone.

Because when the world said,
“You’re too broken to belong,”
we said,
“Cool. Then we’ll just build a new world.”

And we are doing it.
Every potluck.
Every group chat.
Every blanket offered without a word.
Every hug that lasts one second longer than polite.
Every time we refuse to let someone disappear
just because they are not “fun to be around” right now.

That is what love looks like
when we write the rules.

We do not ghost each other.
We haunt each other with check-ins.
With “You still breathing?”
With “Need anything today?”
With “I saw this meme and thought of you.”
With “You don’t have to answer—just know I’m thinking of you.”

You feel that?

That is love with calluses.
Love with history.
Love that buried people
and kept marching.

I am not interested in being independent.
I have tried that.
It is a slow death with good branding.

Give me interdependence.
Give me borrowed hoodies and co-signed dreams.
Give me group texts that hold more weight
than most churches ever did.

Give me chosen family
who do not flinch when I fall.
Give me people who see my shadows
and do not need them explained.

This is the love that raised me.
The love that caught me.
The love that dragged me back from the edge
and said,
“You are not done.”

And I am not.

Because we are not.

We are not done building this love.
This wild, ragged, radical love.
This stitched-together kind of salvation
that says:
“You matter. No matter what.”

So when they ask me who loved me best,
I will not name one person.
I will name every soul
who ever helped carry my story.

Every “stay safe.”
Every “text me when you get home.”
Every “I saved you a plate.”
Every “you do not have to explain—just come in.”

We built this love ourselves.
And I will never stop defending it.