On Love

1. Thomas was right when he said you are the sun. I love looking at you when you dance, your face lit under shifting lights of vivid and iridescent colour, spilling sweet bronzed smiles from grinning lips, sunshine through hazy crowds of hair and sweat and bare teeth. I can’t help but laugh and shake my head like a fool when you turn that pure, unaffected joy towards me, the honey of breathing sunrise, too heady and slippery a joy for me to retain. This is not meant to be a confession of love, however much I do love you, but rather a reflection on you, and your beautiful, alien, perfumed and intrinsic self. You have the soul of a wizened and worldly gypsy woman, barefoot and spinning, a child of the earth and the sea. Grow into your soul. I will love you forever.

2. I drove past the ocean today and it reminded me of you. How desperately I wanted to run into the water, soak in the salt until all my extremities turned pruney. The people here don’t love the water like we do. I think, I mean, maybe the ocean reminds me of you because it’s our place, us sea children. We were always floating together, silently listening to the waves break, arms and legs extended outwards so from above we’d look like starfish. But maybe, I think, the familiarity comes with the way it holds me, like you used to. It feels like love, the salt water cradling me, waves carving into every crevice. Nestled there, seaweed tickling at my toes, I am reminded of the way your arms curled around me, embracing every inch. I miss your fingers tracing along my ribs.

3. I watched you this morning, brushing your teeth in that shitty communal bathroom, toothpaste running down your face. I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but I think in that moment I feel in love with you. It was like, you know when the sky is grey and dark and you forget what the sun looks like? And then they shift and suddenly everything is bright and lovely again? Well that’s how it felt. It just washed over me and I know I shouldn’t be telling you this because I know it will screw things up with us but… I see you and get goosebumps. The way your gums show when you laugh really hard, or the way you hoard dead flowers. I wish I didn’t feel this way.

4. I was reading somewhere the other day that you should never house a lovebird alone. Something about a need for frequent contact and reassurance from their partner. Maybe we’re lovebirds. That might explain this constant aching. I miss the way my body feels beside yours. It’s swallowing me.