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An Ever-Evolving Observation

I don’t know exactly how to put it into words, but I realized something. The other day, I was struck with the thought “okay, I want to love and be loved again”, but that’s not it fully. It’s more than that. What I want is to actually put in work for love, maybe for the first time ever. What I thought love was has changed. I thought love was instinctual, destined, pre-written. I thought a lover was someone who knows everything about me without having ever asked. 

I used to fantasize about my loved knowing my exact coffee order, picking out the perfect meal at a restaurant just because they knew me, but that is…an impossible standard, a childish fallacy, and a love that is not equivalent. That is not love; that is obsession. 

Now what I want is to make a meal for someone. I want to sit and watch Jeopardy with someone and be shocked when they shout out an answer to an absurdly specific question. Love is not having memorized every letter written on the pages of someone’s heart; it is being excited that the book never ends, the words always changing and new discoveries always ahead. 

I do not want my love to be effortless.

 Love is in the effort. 

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Yours

(piece originally written: 04/08/20)

Do I want you? 

Or Do I just Hate myself?

Please oh please

Don’t Take that the Wrong Way

Could I love you?

Or are we both just so Alone?

That we’ll take Anything that We Can Get?

Loveless Girls 

In Small Towns 

Do I have Feelings for You?

Or do I just Need to Get Laid?

Apologies, I guess

But I never Claimed to be Behaved

Will I Still Think You’re

The Most Gorgeous Thing 

I’ve ever Seen

Once I sober up? 

And Do I Even Want

To Be Sober Ever Again?

Could you even Love Me? 

When We’re Clearly so Different 

You’re Soft and Sweet

You still Believe in Love

And I’m not so Sure I Do

I finally Love Myself

Maybe that Should be 

Enough

Am I Selfish to Want More? 

To Want 

To be 

Yours?
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Whenever it is Quiet

(piece originally written: 04/08/20)

Whenever it is quiet, I go to a place, the same exact place every time. I am standing in front of a window; nearly naked, and staring at the lazily drizzling rain. In my hand is a mug of coffee that has gone a little too cool to be enjoyable, forgotten in favor of the oddly purpling sky and restless looking storm clouds. The little apartment is warm, as evidenced by the faint creaking and rattling of a very old furnace, and yet the very sight of what must be frigid droplets has me shivering. Perhaps I should’ve slipped on something to throw over the thin things I wore to bed, not because I get particularly hot in my sleep, but because I need to have as much of my skin available and accessible as possible for the faintest brush of skin against mine. As I’m pondering turning and grabbing my woolen, massive cardigan, the almost-too hot hands of my lover slid across my stomach, gently pressing my back up against a firm yet softly yielding chest, dry and chapped lips from deep slumber brushing right below my ear, so that my lover can speak while still being able to kiss my neck. 

“What are you thinking about?” 

  Voice still sleep-scratchy; had they noticed the absence of my body in our bed even mid slumber? Pulling themselves out of deliciously warm, fluffy blankets in order to ask me a question that no one’s ever cared enough to ask me before, a question that I find them asking all the time. I do not know the answer, admitting as much so quietly that they must struggle to hear me, but it doesn’t seem to bother nor surprise them. Half the time, I don’t seem to have the answers or any explanation as to what has me so lost inside my own hazy head. The easy dismissal would irritate others, make them sigh and remove their grounding touches and abandon me for the kitchen, but not this one. They know me too well, huffing a fondly exasperated little sigh into the column of my throat and press a final, open mouthed peck to the pale skin there before muttering:

“I’m sure it’ll come back to you. Could help you jog your memory?” 

   It’s a thinly veiled, and downright terrible, come on, but it has exactly the effect they were aiming for. I laugh, shoving at their chest, and putting on a show of being annoyed and exasperated, even though my chest fills fit to bursting and I know how terrible I am at concealing the smile on my lips and in my eyes. 

    Satisfied that I am no longer adrift at sea, they mumble something about making breakfast in the kitchen, and this time when they slip away from me, it doesn’t curdle in my gut like a loss. I know that they will come back to me, and when they get lost in their own sorrow or anger or frustration,I to them, time and time again. I look back out the window; the rain doesn’t seem so cold and melancholy anymore.