He's never been good with words, never been capable of spinning tales the way his best friend always has, but this woman makes him want to become a poet just to find the right combination of descriptions to describe her voice. He thinks it might be creepy, the way he searches the thesaurus for adjectives that fit, but when he tells her, years down the line, in between bouts of flowing, beautiful speech, she just laughs and calls him silly. And that might be his favorite word of all, just ... Read more

They were never dating, though everyone thought they were. Everyone thought they should have been. They knew better. They would have ripped each other to pieces, left each other in bloody, ragged messes on the floors for others to eventually try to clean up. And even without that official title, they still ruined each other. She used to tell him that love would see them through, and he used to tell her she was being too optimistic. Love ripped them apart. It's been years since they've seen each other and ... Read more

When I think of how many types of love there are, I have to wonder why they're all described by the same exact word. I love my parents. I loved my ex. I love my friends. I love my pets. I love chocolate. It isn't about intensity, really, because that would somehow suggest that some types of love are lesser than others. And it isn't about familiarity, either. So what is it about? The Ancient Greeks said there were several types of love, and used separate terms for each. Why ... Read more

It was a mosh pit, but it was different, because your chest was against my back and my hips were locked in your palms. Sweaty, pulsing, rough. We moved and the crowd moved and everyone screamed and the band kept playing. I didn't know your face outside of the lights of the dirty club and you didn't know my voice beneath the high-pitched squeal of the amplifiers. We rocked together for three hours and then split when the crowd beat feet to get out before everyone else. Sometimes I still ... Read more

I've never known much about astronomy, but the cascade of freckles across your shoulder blades makes me want to learn constellations so that I can trace them into your skin with my tongue. The way you shudder under my mouth and arch into me, even when you're half-asleep, makes me want to learn lots of things just to illicit more reactions like that. They talk about finding starlight in the eyes, but I found it on your skin. ... Read more

They walk together down sidewalks, in stores, on park trails and through crowds. Side by side, hands close but never touching, gaits exactly matched so that they can speak without being noticed by the prying eyes around them. It's a subtle art, being together without demonstrating togetherness, a skill they've been cultivating for years merely for their own safety. And they're content, because there's something sweet about the longing between hands that are too distant. There's a warmth between two sets of eyes that can't lock for more than a ... Read more

He doesn't have to give her a huge speech about how much he loves her and how much she's changed his life and how great they are together and what it would mean to him if she would agree to be with him forever. She doesn't even need him to get down on one knee, really. She just needs him to ask, and to confirm that he wants this as badly as she does. She's already threatened to propose if he doesn't get to it soon, and though she would ... Read more

He loves him the way he once loved chocolate ice cream. There's a forbidden sort of flavor to it, because he knows his mother would shriek and jump about like she does when she's discovered one of his guilty pleasures. And he likes that. He likes that he can smile at him and kiss him and hold his hand, but only behind closed doors where his mother won't think to look because she would never suspect him of something like this. But the thing is... he loves him in other ... Read more

It works best when they're both strung out and exhausted, falling into each other and fumbling toward orgasm on stained sheets that should have been cleaned weeks ago. There's a pile of cigarette butts on the nightstand next to the bed. There's a ticking pendulum clock in the kitchen that's twenty minutes fast. She digs her nails into his back and he bites her shoulder and they pretend that their life is somehow glamorous or beautiful or even normal. Okay. She used to say his name when she came. Now ... Read more

"I can't help falling in love with you." Beautiful words from beautiful mouths set to beautiful melodies played during beautiful cinematic moments. He loves them, hates them, wants to eradicate them from his mind and stop hearing them sung in every context, for every couple, because damn if they don't hit entirely too close to home. Falling is the worst part. There's so much vulnerability and so much desperation and this sweet kind of floaty feeling that gets wiped out as soon as anyone realizes he's free-falling from the highest ... Read more

If you want to woo me, make me your muse. Impress me with poetry or paintings or drawings or letters. Give me a reason to believe that your mind is as beautiful as your body and that we can have intellectual conversations. Tell me how you feel in ways that are so unique and so powerful and so evocative that I cannot help but fall a little bit more in love with you every time you produce something new. If you want to woo me, fuck me like I'm something ... Read more

They have never met before this moment and although he knows the myths, he cannot bring himself to care. Everyone at the party is counting down from ten and she is so beautiful, and her eyes are locked on his and he is going to lean in and kiss her when the countdown gets to one. Supposedly, that means he will spend the next year with her. But he doesn't even know her name. He honestly doesn't care. He just wants someone to kiss as he ushers in the new ... Read more

You look best with your glasses on and your hair pulled up, piled on top of your head in red wisps and tangles. When you curl up on the couch in that old flannel of his and your favorite pair of sweatshorts and pull out a book and read, you look absolutely incredible. It's the feeling of seeing you totally comfortable and at home, no bra and just a peek of your breast hanging out of the half-open shirt, toes freshly painted and dug into the couch, tattoos bared to ... Read more

Something about hearing a man sing in French is so delicious. I can fall in love with his voice after a single lyric, a single verse, and imagine an entire life wherein we walk along the streets of Paris eating croissants and discussing Moliere's "Tartuffe." It's a life in which I'm beautiful and glamorous and wealthy and he sings me to sleep each night on the tiny keyboard we purchased to give him something to do with his very restless, very musical fingers. I only understand half of what he ... Read more

There is always another shoe waiting to drop, and the problem with love is that truly falling for someone requires a hell of a lot of vulnerability. It requires patience, and trust, and a willingness to open yourself up completely with the full knowledge that you will likely end up getting hurt. Being in love can't only be about the good things, because then it wouldn't really be real. So maybe you say the wrong thing, or push each other away, or make the wrong choice, or take the wrong ... Read more