✦ “to me you’re the sea / and i have fallen in love / with salt on my skin.”

✦ “there is always one thing i have loved more than the night and that is you.” ❖

✦ “addiction is tricky. for example: a man who quit smoking for 11 years spent 15 seconds in an elevator with a man smoking a cigarette. he gave in. what i’m trying to say is i think i love you again.”

✦ “maybe one day we’ll meet again when we’re different people. / maybe then we’ll be better for each other.”

✦ “someone asked me what home was and all i could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage.”

✦ “i’d cut my soul into a million different pieces just to form a constellation to light your way home. i’d write love poems to the parts of yourself you can’t stand. i’d stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you i’m not afraid of your dark.”

✦ “and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile i ever saw.”

✦ “and i’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, i’d find you and i’d choose you.”

✦ “i myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

✦ “even his butterfly kisses suffocate her in the most delightful way.”

✦ “i hadn’t known that a light could be a feeling and a sound could be a color and a kiss could be both a question and an answer. and that heaven could be the ocean or a person or this moment or something else entirely.”

✦ “although you are very small and your kind have existed in the universe for only a short time, you are an important part of something very large and very beautiful.”

✦ “8 ways to say i love you” ❖

✦ “mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.”

✦ “it wasn't until after / i poured the second cup / that i realized / i was alone” ❖

✦ “the sky is a suspended blue ocean. the stars are the fish that swim. the planets are the white whales i sometimes hitch a ride on, and the sun and all light have forever fused themselves into my heart and upon my skin.”

✦ “hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages.”

✦ “wendy, wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.”

✦ “my parents warned me about the drugs in the streets but never the ones with hazel eyes and a heartbeat.”

✦ “i want to love with every inch of my body. i will love you with my knees and fingertips, with my elbows and my collarbones. with my freckles and my knuckles, my wrinkles and my scars. and i will love you with all the spaces in between.” ❖