Assume as necessary.

Why is it so politically incorrect to show your feelings? Would it be inappropriate to tell you that I’m in love?

That your dimples are like hinges that purse your lips in the most adorable way, and I want to kiss them. That I want to have you here next to me, to feel the weight of your body pressing against mine. That I want to smell you on my fingers, I want to fold my sheets around you, I want to feel your curls under my hands as I lather and rinse.

Because I’m sick of being polite and I’m tired of propriety.

So let’s deal with this attraction. Let’s not ignore what’s between us.

Knowing that I love someone may make me strong, but knowing that someone loves me makes me stronger.

I can see it in your eyes
I can hear it in your voice
the signs are obvious
that all we had has run its course

—Matchbook, Strung Out

The hardest thing isn’t knowing this’ll end, because the certainty of such a fact was clear from the moment we started. It’s knowing that the end is coming and still falling in love that’s the hardest.

How can I distance myself when everything you do draws me closer? If only it wasn’t so fruitless to keep reminding myself that this will never last. All that can be said is that it’s worth it. Everything I’ll be feeling soon is worth another night lying next to you, worth another morning waking up with you.

So give me one more kiss, one more taste of your lips, and tell me how much you’ll miss this.

19. Have you ever been in love? Unfortunately.

—LBJ

Well, here we are again.

I used to think that love was only pain. That was when the only experiences I had with love were bad, when everything I ever felt was unrequited. The fact that I felt this way was representative of the fact that I hadn’t gotten over those feelings at the time. How childish, inexperienced, confused, immature I was. This feeling shaped much of my personality in the last few years, although I’ve recently been able to come out of such an emotional blockade.

Having a relationship where most feelings, however confused, however torrential, however temporary, were shared, has allowed me to come to terms with the past. Such an incident has benefited me greatly, has let me know that I’m not so numb anymore, that it’s possible for such a relationship to exist even if I may never experience it again. Perhaps I was so scared that I would never fall in love again that any such experience would have shocked me into getting over what had happened in the past.

Now I embrace the feeling of love, embrace the fact that the simple act of listening to a song can fill me such poignancy, completely regardless of whether it’s good or bad. Not only do I enjoy being able to care for someone, I enjoy missing them as well, as difficult as it can be. I like the fact that something can turn me terribly, illogically weak. Every emotion involved, whether it’s pleasurable or painful, fills me with the urge to write, to create, to express. This is what I look for. This is what I need.

Now only good can come of love.

It always interests me to learn how some people are changed so suddenly in their lives. An incident, whether it’s retirement, graduation, death, or anything of such a magnitude, cause some to have new revelations or epiphanies. The fact that it takes something as drastic as these situations to affect some people seems seems a little odd to me.

Do these people not think at all in their daily lives? Do they go through one day to the next without looking at the big picture, without seeing some sort of perspective?

I think I’m generally unaffected by such extreme events because of the fact that I try to find meaning in almost everything I experience (risking pretension). It ends up being that something like the loss of a favorite shirt can affect me as much as failing an entire university course. I feel as if I learn enough about myself from both events. As a result of this, I sometimes change on a day to day basis, although it’s generally on a miniscule level and takes a while before it all builds up into anything noticeable.

Of course, this also means that very little ends up surprising me. I’m rarely shocked by anything, and often feel like my emotions have been leveled off, perhaps numb or simply accustomed to change. I don’t get drastically affected anymore, and in turn, can think and act clearly according to my set of logic. The only thing that ends up overcoming my cerebrality is hate.

And love.