The Lover's Dictionary

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reblog this if you think this blog ought to make a comeback!

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EPILOGUE, n.

You walk into the doorway just as I'm about to finish. You ask me what I'm writing.

          "You'll see," I say. "I promise."

           These words are now mine, but soon they'll be ours.

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COMPOSURE, n.

You told me anyway, even though I didn't want to know. A stupid drunken fling while you were visiting Toby in Austin. Months ago. And the thing i hate the most is knowing how much hinges on my reaction, how your unburdening can only lead to me being burdened. If I lose it now, I will lose you, too. I know that. I hate it.

          You wait for my response.

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BREATHTAKING, adj.

Those mornings when we kiss and surrender for an hour before we say a single word.

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LEERY, adj.

Those first few weeks, after you told me, I wasn't sure we were going to make it. After working for so long on being sure of each other, sure of this thing, suddenly we were unsure again. I didn't know whether or not to touch you, sleep with you, have sex with you.

          Finally, I said, "It's over."

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LATITUDE, n.

"We're not, like, seeing other people, right?" I asked. We were barely over the one-month mark, I believe.

          You nodded.

          "Excellent," I said.

          "But I have to tell you something," you added - and my heart sank.

          "What?"

          "At first, I was seeing someone else. Only for the first week or two. Then I told him it wasn't going to work."

          "Because of me?"

          "Partly. And partly because it wouldn't have worked anyway."

          I was glad I hadn't known I was in contest; I don't know if I could have handled that. But still, it was strange, to realize my version of those weeks was so far from yours.

          What a strange phase - 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.

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DUMBFOUNDED, adj.

And still, for all the jealousy, all the doubt, sometimes I will be struck with a kind of awe that we're together. That someone like me could find someone like you - it renders me wordless. Because surely words would conspire against such luck, would protest the unlikelihood of such a turn of events.

          I didn't tell any of my friends about our first date. I waited until after the second, because I wanted to make sure it was real. I wouldn't believe it had happened until it had happened again. Then, later on, I would be overwhelmed by the evidence, by all the lines connecting you to me, and us to love.

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ACRONYM, n.

I remember the first time you signed an email with SWAK. I didn't know what it meant. It sounded violent, like a slap connecting. SWAK! Batman knocking down the Riddler. SWAK! Cries of "Liar! Liar!" Tears. SWAK! So I wrote back: SWAK? And the next time you wrote, ten minutes later, you explained.

          I loved the ridiculous image I got from that, of you leaning over your laptop, touching your lips gently to the screen, sealing your words to me before turning them into electricity. Now every time you SWAK me, the echo of that electricity remains.

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INDELIBLE, adj.

That first night, you took your finger and pointed to the top of my head, then traced a line between my eyes, down my nose, over my lips, my chin, my neck, to the center of my chest. It was so surprising. I knew I would never mimic it. That one gesture would be yours forever.

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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.

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My goodness, I think this might be becoming my favorite Tumblr! This is brilliant and beautiful. David Levithan is pure genius!

Ditto!

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Oh my God, your blog is incredible. Absolutely amazing.

Love is incredible & amazing. (most of the time)

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SUFFUSE, v.

I don't like it when you use my shampoo, because then your hair smells like me, not you.

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VIABLE, adj.

I'll go for a drink with friends after work, and even though I have you, I still want to be desirable. I'll fix my hair as if it's a date. I'll check out the room along with everyone else. If someone comes to flirt with me, I will flirt back, but only up to a point. You have nothing to worry about - it never gets further than the question about where I live. And in San Francisco, that's usually the second or third question. But for that first question, where it still seems like it might be possible, I look for that confirmation that if I didn't have you, I'd still be a person someone would want.

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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.

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DEADLOCK, n.

Just when it would seem like we were at a complete standstill, the tiebreakers would save us.

          If Emily's birthday party and Evan's birthday party were on the same night, we'd go to the movies in stead of having to choose. If I wanted Mexican and you wanted Italian, we'd take it as a sign to go for Thai. If I wanted to get back to New York and you wanted to spend another night in Boston, we'd find a bed-and-breakfast somewhere in between. Even if neither of us got what we wanted, we found freedom in the third choices.

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ABERRANT, adj.

"I don't normally do this kind of thing," you said.

          "Neither do I," I asssured you.

          Later it turned out we had both met people online before, and we had both slept with people on first dates before, and we had booth found ourselves falling too fast before. But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was: "I don't normally feel this good about what I'm doing."

          Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling.

          Everything else will be measured against it.