I was lucky to catch poet Amaris Diaz, as she was in Baton Rouge for a reading. Of course I had to speak with her about love! Read our conversation below and check out some of her work here. Name: Amaris DiazHometown: San Antonio, TexasAge: 20Age You First Fell in Love: 19Love Is: Love is love (laughs). Um, I would say in a sentence love is- let me not overthink this. Love is two people or more people accepting each other and offering affirmation for whatever someone wants to be.Amaris: The first time I fell in love, it was a complete melting down of every bad thing I'd ever made my self to feel. An allowance to let myself feel worthy of love and light. It was a complete rebuilding of just myself.Monique: Is that lover your lover now?A: Yes.M: And how did you know that was a different kind of love than anything you'd experienced before?A: To me, he never makes me question myself or never makes me feel silly for anything. Everything with him has always been validated and welcomed; anger, sadness, sorrow, pure joy, all of it. It's never an inconvenience. A lot of the times our feelings resonate because we're so similar in personality, so it's awesome because everything I feel I know is shared by this one person.M: So then what is love to you?A: Love is love (laughs). Um, I would say in a sentence love is- let me not overthink this. Love is two people or more people accepting each other and offering affirmation of whatever someone wants to be.M: As far as your cultural background, who you are, who you identify with do you feel that has affected negatively or positively how you express love, how you love yourself, how you give love?A: I would say as someone who grew up poor in a low income town, Spanish speaking side of town I witnessed a lot of domestic abuse a lot of verbal abuse, a lot of stuff like that, and so as a brown woman it's imperative to break out of that and to say, "I am worthy of being loved completely, I am worthy of whatever relationship I choose to have with whomever I choose to have it with." And then I think as a queer person, as a queer person in a heterosexual relationship it's completely imperative to allow myself to not feel like a bad queer. For falling in love with someone who happens to be male bodied. I think that that also ties into our relationship because we are both completely open to how one another chooses to express their sexuality and gender presentation and everything that goes into those aspects of the person. SO to me my relationship is still very queer, it's genderless and it's gender role-less, there's none of that enforced. And I would say it's also completely equal and completely accepting of each other, which is something that I've never experienced before.