love and friendship

Love is such a subjective term.

Then again, anything could be a 'subjective term'. A word has a general meaning, which most people will grasp. But a single word, no matter how common, can easily provoke emotions and memories in a person, if they have had some kind of particular or especial experience which has led them to attach a personal significance to that word.
Sometimes the word is not a real word; sometimes it is an imaginative extension of an existing word. Oftentimes it is a word not commonly used, but not an elaborate one either.

But I digress.

I ask a question, to myself, to everyone, to no-one:

What is it, to love?

Why do my emotions rise and fall like the tides, dancing a slow waltz in time with a turning moon? I have friends, the bond grows stronger, Love escalates, and yet It must hide in a smile and a warm embrace. Nothing more, nothing more. To risk more is to risk a friendship. Perhaps Love lives in the mind and not the soul.