01012012:

I wonder what it’s like to be in love with someone. What’s it like to have a crush? To be so flustered or happy or eager when conversing with someone? What’s it like to be sad when you don’t see somebody every day or when you don’t talk to someone? What’s it like to be excited for a simple text or a wave or a smile? What’s it like to cry over somebody because you’re not brave enough to confess or that person’s already taken? What’s it like to have your heart break every time you remember that you hold an unrequited love? What’s it like to passionately long for someone? To want to spend every waking moment together? To fall in love all over again and again and again with the same person? What’s it like to love?

to me, love is constant.

it’s that constant light-headed feeling you get whenever you see that person. like your head is suddenly one of those silver crinkly balloons that they sell in grocery stores that have contrite sayings like “get well” or “it’s a boy” on them.

it’s that jolt of electricity that pops and crackles under your skin and scorches your veins when they even so much as brush your shoulder as you pass.

it’s never-ending conversations in a dimly lit coffee shop over lattes that have long grown cold as you discuss philosophy and religion and your lives and everything in between.

it’s the knife that punctures your heart, cutting through your ribs and through all the muscle, and twists with every hateful word said or by every worried thought that they may find someone else better than yourself. it’s the tears that you shed when you yearn to see their face and hear their voice after long periods of separation.

love is everywhere. it is within friends, family, lovers, even strangers.

i have seen love in a stranger’s eyes in a low-lighted tunnel.

i have seen love in the eyes of a friend who was something more, then went back to a friend. (i don’t see it much anymore, but i know deep in my gut it’s still there).

i have seen love in the eyes of my father and mother, despite the hateful words spat at each other.

i see love in the eyes of my beloved every time he looks at me and with every smile he shares.

love is constant. and it is astonishing. 

i can see
every little light from
the tree
as i sit on my bed
and it’s okay, i guess

we don’t use the same lights anymore.
i’ve always hated change. 

-

i wish you were sitting here
with me, maybe
with your back to me as
i stayed up blogging (you say
i’m addicted, i just say
it’s better at night) and you roll over
and throw an arm around
my waist, sleepily mumbling
for me to come here, and i just
rub your head and scratch your back and
whisper “go back to sleep, sweetie.”
and i’ll put up the laptop and
you’ll pull me close and we
will go to sleep in a mass
of tangled limbs and tangled sheets.

but instead
i’ll stay up alone, tangled up
in just sheets
while you’re asleep miles away
maybe dreaming of me.

-

christmas is supposed to be
about being with who you love, and
i can’t be with you right now. it
is hard not to be a little depressed. 

speaktomorestrangers:

I suppose I’ve only ever thought there to be two kinds of ‘love’. One, you feel for your friends, your family - it’s compassion, empathy, open heartedness; it’s a general, enveloping, positive emotion towards people or places or things.

The other kind of love is the you-are-my-soulmate, my-one-and-only type of thing. The sort of word that makes your heart stop for a minute the first time you hear it in a relationship. The kind of word you only hear in a relationship. The kind of word that defines where you stand in that relationship. The kind of thing you wait months before saying, hold back the first few times because you might only be sure you mean it right now and maybe it’ll be different in ten months. This kind of love, I’ve always considered to be the serious, heavy, game-changing “I am in love with you”.

That’s how it’s always been for me. From my first really serious girlfriend to the on-and-off pillhead lovers, from almost-serious hookups to my high school sweetheart, there has been this one kind of love that I searched for and found and lost because that’s how that sort of thing can happen.

And you tell me you love me, sometimes. And I sort of just smile or kiss you or otherwise take it in stride, not quite knowing how to react. I care deeply for you. You balance me. There are poems and drawings driven entirely by your ubiquitous presence in my head - it often feels like you are all there is for me here. But you tell me you love me and it makes me, momentarily, terrified. What if we aren’t on even ground? What if one of us feels something to an extreme the other doesn’t? What if a difference in feeling is what changes us? Will I hurt you by not telling you that I love you too? I can’t possibly love you, it’s too soon, I’m not ready to drain my bank account to buy you a ring.

But I realize, now, that all relationships include a certain amount of love. Even a puppy crush, I think, involves a bit of it. There is no permanence to it; love may be a committed relationship, but the feeling itself is not a commitment. It can pass and fade and die and grow and change and be a thousand things.

For me to have thought that there is either this “friends and family” sort of love or this “I want to marry you first thing tomorrow” sort of love was foolish. Those are extremes; there is an entire spectrum between them. I hesitate to tell you I love you too because I’ve spent my whole life thinking those words to be this declarative, finalistic diamond ring that we only put on the one person we really, truly, seriously, honestly believe is for us, forever.

I think because of that, because of the weight I attribute to those three words, I may not be able to casually tell you I love you too. I’m too attached to the fairy tale idea of “love” as this forever-lasting, all-powerful sort of romantic force. The rational side of me realizes that this is somewhat ludicrous; the romantic side of me says that it doesn’t matter, because that’s what it knows.

I am happy with you. I do not see an end to this. I am exuberant to see your face, enthusiastic to hear you knock; there is insight in your words and deep comfort in your touch. There is poetry in your movements. There is music in your breath. Understand, please, how deeply I do feel for you; but understand my inability to let slip those three words, however powerful they may be when you use them.

i’ve always been that person to say “i love you” first in a relationship.

in my first real relationship, my boyfriend looked at me very seriously when i said it and told me not to say those words again unless i really meant it. and it hurt at the time, because i did mean it.

i’ve said those words to many different people, and for each person there is a different amount of love or a different meaning for it. but i think that having this understanding of love can be any sort of level rather than two main extremes is very important.

your voice is like wine to me.
i find myself drunk on it
whenever you let it flow
from your lips.

i pray it never runs dry.

how can a title be given
to two people
who want nothing more
than to grow
and learn
from each other
and simply enjoy
each other’s company?
why must we demand
that a label be put
on a relationship
such as that?

i want nothing more
than to lay my head in your lap
and listen as you read books by men
who have long been dead
and whom you admire. 

why do we have to explain ourselves to others? 

-

last night
you said such sweet words
(“you’re just beautiful”
“you’re really smart”
“you really need to give yourself more credit”)
that i was afraid
it was simply the artificial chemicals
pumping through your veins
that happened to be affecting
your mind

but you smiled and took my hand
and reassured me that you meant
every
word
you
said.

every smile
and every kind word
took me by surprise.

you called me baby
and seemed so concerned for my well-being.
whenever I asked why
you would say “because i love you”
and i would feel my heart
climbing against my ribcage
trying desperately to escape
so it could join with yours. 

-

for the first time
i took your hand
and didn’t feel scared.

this is progress. 

-

“this may sound crazy, but does every song remind you of us?”

why yes.
they do.

-

you have no idea
how much i think of you. 

mountain passes
and winding roads
disappear in the dark.

your eyes stay focused
hands gripped tight on the wheel
as you navigate our way back home.

conversation is quiet
until a certain question arises.

-

“would you like to stay over tonight?”

-

feelings become thoughts.
thoughts become words.
words become jumbled
as they fall from numb lips
into unsteady hands
and I try to string them together
into coherent sentences
for you to understand

but i am
unsuccessful.

you let your emotions show
and let down a wall
that i have seldom seen
beyond. i start to
wonder
if this is what i
want.

i think it is.
i really think it is.

-

later
as two bodies
lie side by side,
i meet your eyes
and can see
their smile
even in the dark.

and now
that look
makes sense.

as i let go
of consciousness
i feel your lips press
lightly
against my forehead
and i think to myself,
“oh,
this must be what happiness
feels like.”

-

hearing you say
those words
was quite possibly
the best gift
i could ever have received. 

streetlights are a
funny thing.
they clad you in
its orange glow
and gives you a new
persona.

i observe the shadows
hiding your face
and the contours
that it creates.

you speak of death
and words flow freely
from your tongue
as my mind drifts
to thoughts of your lips
as they caress my outstretched neck.

-

i don’t want to forget
the taste
of your mouth
as it melds
and melts
to mine.

i want to bask in your smile
as we lay in the semi dark
me with my heart in my hands
and you with your heart hidden in your eyes.

-

i wonder what it is you think
when you kiss me.

the mystery
remains unsolved

and i

remain

unaware.

speaktomorestrangers:

I think the reason it takes me so long to move in any particular direction is that I need to validate how I feel by making sure I’ve thoroughly established it within myself. The reason that it took me two or three weeks to tell you that this was bullshit wasn’t as much because I was afraid to lose you or to stand up for myself or stand up to myself or anything, but rather because I hadn’t quite figured out whether or not it was bullshit.

Beautiful girl you like a lot spending every night in your bed. Holding you, kissing you, calling you sweet names… I’d been here before with a number of other people, but it wasn’t like this. I’m not sure what exactly the difference was, but this was too easy to move with. Too comfortable to stay in. The fact that you had a boyfriend somewhere far away seemed inconsequential. Meeting him was insignificant. You telling him that we had sex, coming back and telling me we couldn’t anymore, that was just how things went. And still, every night, you would wrap yourself around me, press your lips to my face, neck, and shoulder. You could call me sweet names. It was too good to push away on the principle that I felt like your plan B.

You told me I wasn’t second-best. I wasn’t your consolation prize. I would nod my head and try to let that seep in. It never did quite deep enough. I guess I was caught between a rock and a soft place, but the rock was the one I really had to hit, it was just really, really unappealing, considering my other option. But I guess it was a matter of self-respect, or just being tired of being strung along, but I finally told you not to kiss me. And we talked about it, and I explained as much as I could figure out how to in that moment. There’s probably a lot more that I just couldn’t get to fit into words, but it’ll come out in another few weeks.

Four hours later, laying in bed, you whispered an explanation. Why it had happened like it had, why you hadn’t put real effort before into changing things, why it was still happening. Why poor willpower was the drive to get you to keep treating me like your on-campus boyfriend. I told you that was a shitty conclusion to your explanation. You told me it wasn’t the conclusion. And you kissed me.

And I kissed you back.

And a little while later, you rolled away from me, with my back still flat, staring up at the ceiling, and I moved to roll over, and you told me not to, because the physical distance between us was intentional on your part and if I rolled over, we might end up making contact. Like the puppy dog I’ve been to you, I stayed on my back for another ten minutes before rolling over and going to sleep.

Read More

“You manipulate me, and I realize it, and I feel it, but it hurts you when I say no, so I try not to sometimes despite the fact that one of us needs to know how to.”

“I didn’t want to throw our relationship away as a matter of principle. I didn’t want to be treated like a toy… I didn’t want to walk away from what we’d developed. I didn’t want to be second-best, runner-up. I didn’t want to stop kissing you. I didn’t want to be your number two…”

My heart breaks at these lines. Because I have felt this exact way. These are the words that I wanted to scream at you last night, when I felt so betrayed. When I was sitting in the dark, smoking cigarettes that didn’t belong to me and trying not to let the tears come (and failing miserably). When you acted like nothing was wrong and that I was the one at fault.

You said I was “blowing things out of proportion”. And maybe I was.

But this is the reason why I was.

I don’t want to be tossed around and used as a toy. I want to be taken seriously. I want to be loved seriously.
But I don’t want this, whatever we are, to stop. Ever.

I never want to stop kissing you.
I never want to stop being around you.
I never want to stop loving you. 

But sometimes, I just want to close my eyes and let everything - my emotions, these pent-up feelings - just subside for a bit. I want a moment of peace.

I want to clear my mind and let things come to me as I watch the sun peek out over the mountains. And even in that moment, I’ll be thinking of you.

Always.