Usually, when peo­ple ask me why it was so spe­cial, I say “When it worked, it worked really well”.

What I really mean to say is,

“It was the way her kisses would travel down my spine. The way she wore her hair dif­fer­ently every time I saw her. The way her cheeks would round so endear­ingly when she truly laughed. The way she could look beau­ti­ful wear­ing dresses, or jeans, or my old paja­mas. The way the tan­ta­liz­ing golden down trav­eled along her lower back. The way her body felt against mine when I pulled her close.

It was because she brought me green tea bub­ble bath when I was home sick for three days with strep throat. Cause she loved try­ing new things, like taro dumplings, and ha gow and sui mai and tofu flower, and bub­ble tea. Cause she would buy me ben­gal spice tea, and hand creams, and soaps, and flow­ers for no rea­son in particular.

It was because she liked tak­ing pho­tos of me too. Cause she would remem­ber the things I wanted when men­tion­ing them in pass­ing so she could look them up and buy them for me later. Cause she truly appre­ci­ated the gifts that I gave her. Cause she spent so long prepar­ing for my birth­day last year, even though she knows I don’t cel­e­brate it. Cause she helped me seek ther­apy for my anx­i­ety issues. Cause she came with me to con­certs when I didn’t want to go alone. Cause she loved The Mars Volta and Shane Watt as much as I do.

It was the way she could cre­ate so many beau­ti­ful things with her hands, using paint or chalk or toner or lead or metal or choco­late. The way she sup­ported me and my pho­tog­ra­phy. The way we would take turns choos­ing movies and watched them together, even though our tastes were so dif­fer­ent. The way she got along with my friends and loved my cat.

In her, I had found the per­son I was look­ing for my whole life, and she held me cap­tive every moment we were together.”

But I never do.