- abstraction, n.
- Love is one kind of abstraction. And then there are those nights when I sleep alone, when I curl into a pillow that isn't you, when I hear the tiptoe sounds that aren't yours. It's not as if I can conjure you there completely. I must embrace the idea of you instead.
- abyss, n.
- There are times when I doubt everything. When I regret everything you've taken from me, everything I've given you, and the waste of all the time I've spent on us.
- awhile, n.
- I love that vagueness of words that involve time.
- It took him awhile to come back ― it could be a matter of minutes or hours, days or years.
- It is easy for me to say it took me awhile to know. That is about as accurate as I can get. There were sneak previews of knowing, for sure. Instances that made me feel, oh, this could be right. But the moment I shifted from a hope that needed to be proven to a certainty that would be continually challenged? There's no pinpointing that.
- Perhaps it never happened. Perhaps it happened while I was asleep. Most likely, there's no signal event. There's just the steady accumulation of awhile.
- basis, n.
- There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you're in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.
- If the moment doesn't pass, that's it ― you're done.
- And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover's face.
- breathtaking, adj.
- Those mornings when we kiss and surrender for an hour before we say a single word.
-
- What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything?
- Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears.
- The key is to never recognize these imbalances. To not let the dauntingness daunt us.
- detachment, n.
- I still don't know if this is a good quality or a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it. Not just during sex, or while talking, or kissing. I don't deliberately pull away — I don't think I do — but I find myself suddenly there on the outside, unable to lose myself in where I am. You catch me sometimes. You'll say I'm drifting off, and I'll apologize, trying to snap back to the present.
- But I should say this:
- Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.
- We have fallen through the surface of want and are deep in the trenches of need.
- fraught, adj.
- Does every "I love you" deserve an "I love you too"? Does every kiss deserve a kiss back? Does every night deserve to be spent on a lover?
- If the answer to any of these is "No," what do we do?
- gravity, n.
- I imagine you saved my life. And then I wonder if I'm just imagining it.
- healthy, adj.
- There are times when I'm alone that I think, This is it. This is actually the natural state. All I need are my thoughts and my small acts of creation and my ability to go or do whatever I want to go or do. I am myself, and that is the point. Pairing is a social construction. It is by no means necessary for everyone to do it. Maybe I'm better like this. Maybe I could live my life in my own world, and then simply leave it when it's time to go.
- hiatus, n.
- "It's up to you," you said, the graciousness of the cheater toward the cheatee.
- I guess I don't believe in a small break. I feel a break is a break, and if it starts small, it only gets wider.
- So I said I wanted you to stay, even though nothing could stay the same.
- ineffable, adj.
- These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.
- I try to convince myself that it's the alcohol talking. But alcohol can't talk. It just sits there. It can't even get itself out of the bottle.
- juxtaposition, n.
- It scares me how hard it is to remember life before you. I can't even make the comparisons anymore, because my memories of that time have all the depth of a photograph. It seems foolish to play games of better and worse. It's simply a matter of is and is no longer.
- What a strange phrase — -not seeing other people. As if it's been constructed to be a lie. We see other people all the time. The question is what we do about it.
- love, n.
- I'm not going to even try.
- motif, n.
- You don't love me as much as I love you. You don't love me as much as I love you. You don't love me as much as I love you.
- obstinate, adj.
- Sometimes it becomes a contest: Which is more stubborn, the love or the two arguing people caught within it?
- only, adj.
- That's the dilemma, isn't it? When you're single, there's the sadness and joy of only me. And when you're paired, there's the sadness and joy of only you.
- punctuate, v.
- Cue the imaginary interviewer:
- Q: So when all is said and done, what have you learned here?
- A: The key to a successful relationship isn't just in the words, it's in the choice of punctuation. When you're in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations.
- reservation, n.
- There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone.
- x, n.
- Doesn't it strike you as strange that we have a letter in the alphabet that nobody uses? It represents one-twenty-sixth of the possibility of our language, and we let it languish. If you and I really, truly wanted to change the world, we'd invent more words that started with x.
sep 1 2013 ∞
sep 1 2013 +
sep 1 2013 +