"i like you."âso slight a phrase, as if affection could be whispered into existence without ink to root it in time. "i like you."âbut where are my love letters? where are the sonnets pressed between trembling hands, the confessions inked in the hush of midnight, the poetry born of longing and the weight of waiting?
have we become so afraid of romance that we no longer carve our love into paper, no longer press words like petals between pages? is love now a fleeting thing, spoken superficially only for loneliness into the air only to vanish like breath against cold glass? i think of john keats, who, drowning in love, wrote to fanny brawne, "i cannot exist without youâ i am forgetful of everything but seeing you againâmy life seems to stop thereâ i see no further." that was love given form, love bound in ink, love made eternal. here I stand, handed only a whisper.
plato mused that love is the longing for our lost halves, the search for the missing part of our soul. if that is true, then should love not be adorned with words, with letters sent across the distance between two hearts, bridges built of longing and ink? should i not have, in my hands, the tangible weight of your affectionâ words scrawled in the margins of ordinary days, folded notes slipped between books, the hush of your soul unfurling in lines meant only for me?
i don't ask for love in grand declarations, nor for affection in the currency of extravagance. i ask only for words, for love given permanence, for a sentence in your handwriting that I can carry like a talisman, proof that for one moment, i was not merely liked, but known, cherished, thought, remembered.
so tell meâif you truly like me, if your heart stirs even the smallest fraction in my directionâ where are my love letters?
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
janainaart
titsay
