For Asia

I know we’ve only just met, but before we dive in, I have a confession to make.

I am ignorant to love. I can’t quantify it or pretend to understand the thousands of ways that it works.

But for you, I’ll try.

Love is not synonymous with the duality of an on-and-off switch. In my experience, it’s more like a kid playing with a dimmer switch. It’s consistent, but adapting all the time. We allow fear,

borne in overthinking, to take the place of genuine outbursts of love. We refuse to see it as

anything other than frustrating when we attempt to place the rules of our physical world on it

There is so much strength in confronting uncertainty, discomfort, vulnerability, pain and trauma. There is beauty in saying exactly what we’re feeling, when we feel it. Uncensored emotion is

taboo and maybe that’s why we see flash mob proposals and PDA as so infringing. Because they

represent a bridging between carnal instinct and structured regiments.

I always start to prepare how I’ll feel about an event later, as that same event is taking place. I’ll make up my mind about how I feel towawrd the people involved and about what this rupture will mean for my self-perception. I can be at a party without really being there. There’s something so finite about cataloging experience and I wish I were vetter at simply living them instead of noticing every little detail in real-time.

But the, what you’re about to read would be very different.

So here goes:

Like writing, love demands subject matter. This happens to be about you.

You are an amalgamation of all of things I’ve loved about other people: true tenderness, sarcasm and wit, transparency, intimacy paired with no desire to hide your love for it, theatrics, spontaneity, ambition, and sincere critique. It is not my intention to point these tendencies out in order to make you self-conscious or even to allude to the shadow-side of their positivity.

If anything, I’m condoning your bahaviour, and that’s something I don’t often do.

1.

The world feels like it’s ending.

But does it especially feel that way today?

It’s ending all the time in every small way, isn’t it?

Seasons and meals and cut flowers in vases,

sunrises and sunsets are all ending right now

Which makes this beginning all the more bittersweet

FACING PAGE

I didn’t know that a person could be so tender, so worshipping.

that they could make me want to cry just by existing

You’re like a good book that I wish I’d written

and so I’m forced to be totally transparent.

How do you make yourself so familiar to me?

2.

I’ve never known how your voice modulates between morning and night

or how to reach out for you when you start to slip away

A person I barely know who feels as close as my own reflection

I try to regulate my daydreaming when I want nothing more

than to be in a bed that smells like you

with you, wanting me there

I want to feel like I’m taking up space

that I’m meant to occupy

FACING PAGE

Right now I feel everything.

and everything feels like a slap in the face.

It feels impossible to stop wanting you. (?)

I can’t change what I want,

and I certainly don’t want to run if I don’t think you’ll chase me

So I keep my feelings with me like allies

because without them, I’d be accepting defeat

Could this last much longer,

this love that I carry with me silently forever?

Because I’m not sure that I will.

So I’m making up my mind to refuse to want one thing and accept its opposite,

as I’ve done so many times before

I’ll allow love to take the place of fantasy and use fantasy as hope instead

because sacrifice always has its desired effect.

3.

Then, I needed to tell you how much I wanted you

but it didn’t seem relevant

So I’ll continue to live my life in majorities and not absolutes

I should’ve kissed you again before you left,

beacause it’s all I wanted to do,

but I was too afraid of what it could mean.

You seemed so sure of yourself

and I felt that my own confidence levels paled in comparison

I’m usually in the business of getting what I want

but my inferiority complex stopped me from doing what I wanted to

No more.

Instead, my panic plainly manifests itself in desperate urges at 4AM

to send you something that explains my irrational attachment to you

and that I’m backing out

But I don’t.

Because I know that I would be doing myself a disservice to myself

to pass up the opportunity to be extremely happy with/because of/in spite of you.

The only thing that scares me is drowning.

4.

How do you know that what you’ve found is “true love?”

Does something unlock itself inside of your chest?

And does the sound of that hinge opening

take up permanent residence under your rib cage?

Is there a newfound desire to reject any invasive thoughts of unworthiness?

Is true love a feeling of sinking in?

Found in the long moment just before you fall asleep in your own bed,

in the familiar rhythm of movement in the foyer;

sounds of a body returning home to yours?

Or is true love a surprise ice cream cone nudged into your hand by someone who knew you’d want one too

(even thought you said you were *sure* you didn’t)?

Is it a whisper that forces your eyes open

or a brief scream of adoration that throws you off balance?

In the split-second when you realize there wasn’t another step down to the landing

Some truth found in your inability to argue that anything has changed about yourself.

5.

I exhale sharply without meaning to,

incapable of saying or doing anything

I turn to look at you and your body’s already against mine

You use your mouth before your words

while your hands restrict my wandering ones

When you rest your forehead against mine I feel like I could die

Your palm presses into my hip like it wants to become a part of me

and I don’t think about moving

I feel at home in my body with you,

a nice change from forgetting that I have one at all

Let’s not confuse power with dominance,

because my trust does not lie in your arrogance.

I like the sounds you make when you’re in my mouth,

to feel your hubris fade away when my name’s in yours

You let out a sigh so intense that it sounds like an apology

6.

When you act passively, I’m aware that what I’m wary of

is not having an opportunity to accuse you

I can never be angry with you for sacrificing a conflict

Because you accept that we are separate people

and always will be

How can I blame you for your acceptance

Still, some mornings I wake up and feel as though I couldn’t want you any more

Other, I’m terrified at the thought of not wanting you anymore

I think I could be in love with someone like you

and the next day I decide that I never want to think of you again

Words are not absolutes

and they never have been

You don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid of saying something they might actually mean

So say how you feel and don’t leave a single thing out, I’m all ears

Because I know there’s a difference between what you feel you can’t say

and what you decide you never will

7.

I’m convinced that someday I’ll know you so well, too well

that I won’t know how to love ou anymore

I hope I’ll never feel that I’ve figured you out enough to get to that point

Then, the intrigue of you would vanish with your mystique

and I haven’t decided if I’m more afraid of abandoning or being abandoned

Maybe when the time comes, they’ll feel like the same thing.

For now, I’m melancholic for things that have yet to happen,

impasses we’ve yet to be confronted with

Could I get too comfortable with your body?

Or worse, could you get too used to mine?

God forbid someone actually try to get to know me,

There’s nothing I fear more than the mundane

soemthing wonderful fading away quietly until it’s imperceptible

It’s irrational, but I never want to cease being amazed

I’ve never been so curious to know a body that isn’t my own

I’m afraid that I’ll always want more of you, more from you

I can’t ecide what’s fair

Are either of our egos big enough to believe that we could avoid normalcy?

Or are we such gerat critics that we’ll never stop finding new things to appreiciate?

What makes me think that we’ll know each other long enough to know the difference?