Everyone knew to get me bookstore gift cards for my birthday, so that's when I'd splurge on my new notebook for the year. it was so careful picking... so important, knowing so many future thoughts will be held in this one rectangle that was being selected in that moment. I recall the smell of the notebook section, with its various leather covers and types of paper. I recall my hesitation. truly spending hours examining the texture of notebook after notebook, the spacing between the lines, the thickness of the page – perhaps least importantly, though relevant, the picture. there were so many sealed in plastic wrap. every year I'd wonder if I was selling myself (okay, my gift cards) short by only choosing the ones I could touch. but I'm someone who could never order randomly off a menu.

In my senior year of high school I won first place for the local “readers writing” contest for a piece of short fiction titled “Jane”. The newspaper and it's accompanying magazine sent photographers and journalists with questions as clunky as their equipment.

The five hundred dollar gift card to Borders was more than worth my required presence at the ceremony and probably exactly worth the embarrassment of my short, awkward speech. Full grown adults truly looked touched, clutching my story as they searched my eyes for meaning I didn't have. I'll never forget the lone old man in the folding chair staring intently at me as I stood near the stack of “Jane”s nobody knew I wrote in a hurried frenzy during the last ten minutes of business class. I was keenly aware that my dad had chosen to teach his regularly scheduled Kung fu class over coming to witness adults fawning over the freestyle written story of his sixteen year old. “The published story as a matter of fact,” I thought, which made me stand a little straighter.

“What do you think it's about?”

Two loud taps near my feet snapped me back to the present moment. Suddenly the man was in front of me, wooden cane between us, asking a fair and simple question. I was taught by my father, quite sternly, to think quickly and cleverly when addressed, despite my knowledge on any subject or lack thereof.

Every interaction was a test that could be failed in a matter of micro seconds. My gaze drifted above the furrow of gray painting his expression, resting on a liver spot I decided was the shape of Italy.

“Well...,” and having not a clue what the meaning of my own work was, one syllable practically waddled out of my mouth singing and became three.

“L-oo-ve?”

It landed as a question. Clueless. Simple. Pathetic.

His little Italy rose along with his surprise as his eyes widened. I noticed a foggy film over one. He had been hoping for more. I'd built up these characters, acted deserving of five hundred dollars worth of plastic sealed (okay, mostly unsealed) thought containers, given this dumb speech just so -

“Because I think it's about obsession,” and his lips slowly curled upwards until they made a sort of sideways grin.

He just wanted someone to speak with about the piece and I just wanted my father to give a fuck that there was a piece whatsoever. This interaction was not a test. We only spoke for about ten minutes that night before he handed me a hastily folded scrap paper and went on his way – actually waddling through the automatic sliding doors. The further he went into the distance, the more his cane resembled any branch.

As it turns out, I wasn't wrong and he wasn't misguided. That night, I unsealed my first plastic wrapped journal which featured a sort of sad tree of life, mostly branches. The thick aroma of fresh leather filled me up as I unfolded the ripped page, apparently from a dictionary.

One word was highlighted, its definition underlined.

I used the adhesive from the seal to stick it to the back side of the branch ridden cover.

Limerence:

Limerence is often characterized as “one-sided” and focused on the uncertainty of the relationship, whereas Love involves a deeper, stable connection based on mutual care, trust, and acceptance of flaws.

she wasn't asking and you were distracting by doing and I thanked you for choosing me and you did and then when it turned late and I turned in as Friday nights are reserved, typically your loneliness expanded and though you didn't need me you wanted me to fill some space where she was absent

I didn't

tears, the following day weakness, admittedly – of which you never mention which never occurs looking back, she hurt you and she moved on and maybe it hurt, too, that your closest two truly closest were unreachable

I didn't know, truly I felt it as you prying like a friend afraid to be alone but I didn't realize the devastation I didn't realize you had been dumped I needed to pick you up

the hat, so I didn't see your tears? the hat the nervous looks the way you sat broken the way I thought you were harboring a child the way you were harboring a goodbye you likely tasted before you felt it

I hear you singing

and I had been

she is sleeping

and she had been

and there you landed in the middle with your thoughts and the lack of distraction and the hat

the next day you would say I abandoned you in the living room but I'm always in my room, the living room at best not abandoned, I'm told still, I'm singing

you'll hear me singing

we'll be singing, someday

today, I heard you singing.

beautiful, blessed, love of my life

my heart aches for your aching.

'maybe she did... did she?” in regards to you two doing face masks together, after I asked, hours ago.the tone of your voice swung upwards, as a question, near the end of the sentence.

“did she what?”

“no, I don't think she did. I thought maybe she wanted to do face masks that night”

“what night?”

“the night when I was in her bed.”

my heart aches for your aching. we both know. I will do everything I can to heal this. my heart aches for my own aching. I have been able to do nothing to that end.

“the night when I was in her bed”

did you or did you not do masks well I know but I love you

“when I was in her bed”

in her bed

her bed