Thank goodness for art. For making a record of beautiful things that aren’t always there for us to look at. Much like how hearts commit people to thoughts and memories we can wonder at later, at any time, all the time.

We speak different languages so you will never know I have whispered confessions into the crook of your neck when we hug.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I whisper, and it’s more of a plea than a question. ‘Like what?’ I don’t say: Like I am something you crave. Something you’d want to devour. Because I would let you.

My job? To pine. My special interest? To long. My calling? To yearn.

My preferred method of bribery? Oh, the promise of a kiss.

Ever since we meet I haven’t been able to look away. But sometimes I can’t look your way. I’m afraid of what my eyes might say.

When I think of our future it’s not the big, flashy moments I imagine. It’s grocery shopping with you pushing the cart behind me. It’s lying on the couch with your head on my lap or washing dishes and passing them to you to dry. It’s the boring, beautiful slices of life.

To love is to part with half of your heart. It’s to never leave a room without leaving half of you behind.

I want to see the world twice; through my eyes and through yours. I want to walk with you through a foreign city at night and see the bright lights reflected in your eyes. I want to look at you as you admire the view.

I like to be the cause of your blush, of that pretty flush. Isn’t that what it means to have a crush? I like it when you whine and I say things just to see you pout; that, I won’t refute. Sulk a little more, it’s cute.

Some days I feel content and some days I feel very, very sad and some days I don’t pay much mind to feelings at all but every day I am tired. Not of life but of struggling. Not of love but of the effort it takes to hold onto it.

‘Isn’t it odd?’ You ask. ‘How the photos you take of me always seem to turn out great?’ And though my lips curl into an involuntary smile, sadness, or perhaps wistfulness, tugs it down. How do I tell you it’s because love got caught in the lens?

It’s a soft kind of love. Not weak but gentle, sweet. It’s the kind of love that heals, the kind that feels like a kiss on a bruise, a whispered, ‘there, all better now.’ It’s the kind of love that is less of a fall and more of a soft landing in a safe space.

Like the best passages from a treasured book and the lyrics to my favourite song, I want to know you by heart.

[Text Received. 8.23am] Do you want to come over for brunch later? [Sent Text. 8.34am] Only if you’re the dessert [Sent Text. 8.35am] if you *make dessert SORRY typed too fast

You’re a contradiction, as sweet as you are evil. You know what you’re doing, know just how to undo me. I know you so well I can tell you’re not innocent at all.

You look so cute, so prim and proper, so perfectly composed; I have to ruin your self-control. So sweet, so well put-together; I need to unravel you, one button at a time.

They say people’s heartbeats synchronise when they’re captivated by the same story and maybe that’s why love is a language; a heart asking a question and finding an answer in another, a conversation held in glances, in touches, in time. Two hearts becoming fluent in each other.

You whisper, ‘You deserve better than this, than me,’ and my heart rips but the sound is too quiet for you to hear. Then anger fills the silence and it sounds like me filling my lungs with air and saying, ‘But you’re what I want. Don’t I deserve to get what I want?’

You’re standing by the window and the sun is framing your face, making you glow, and it’s so easy for me to walk over, to grab your waist, to silently ask for a kiss. It’s so easy for you to give in. It isn’t until I pull away that I remember we haven’t done this before.

Is it easier to be loved or to love? They’re both actions: to be thought of, remembered, missed; to consider, to ask, to pay attention. Which is easier? To say, ‘I made space for you in life, in my thoughts, in my heart,’ or to accept the unspoken invitation and occupy them?

‘In another life we might not have met,’ you say, throwing a wistful smile my way. ‘Or maybe we cross paths and our eyes meet but you keep walking.’ And I almost laugh because of how ridiculous that sounds. ‘There isn’t a version of me that could have turned away from you.’

What’s intimacy? For me it isn’t so much the press of one’s lips against another’s, but familiarity—comfortable silences and absentminded touches. A nickname only I get to use. Guessing your thoughts before you voice them. The space we keep between us; the absence of it, that is.

Little moles and freckles dotted on your skin like stars, each one a landing mark for a kiss.

We’re in the car and the sun is kissing your cheeks, and the wind is touching your hair, and my hand fidgets for something to hold that isn’t your thigh.

‘Did you hear me?’ You ask, a little peeved. And I swear I was paying attention—to your lips, with my eyes; not at what they were saying but how they moved.

In an alternative universe we’re neighbours who communicate via notes left inside the shared mailbox or pilots in rival spaceships firing at everything but each other or two ghosts stuck haunting the same house but in every single one we’re in something—like, lust, love.

[Sent text. 10:34pm] Come over [Unsent Text. 10:34pm] Come home [Sent text. 6:01am] Stay awhile [Unsent text. 6:01am] Stay forever

I’ll stay and you won’t leave me behind. I’ll tell you my fears and help dry your tears when you tell me yours. We’ll make promises and keep them. Say those three words and mean them.

You say, ‘You’re terrible,’ and accuse me of needling you on purpose. But the corners of your mouth curl into a smile that dents your cheeks and wrinkles your face, each one a polygraph line that gives your heart away. It’s proof that you’ve given me your heart anyway.

More forehead kisses, yes, but also more hand kisses: my lips pressed to your palm, gently, when you touch my cheek; on your inner wrist, sweetly, the first of many that trail up towards your neck; a kiss on each finger, reverent, on the hand that holds my heart.

There’s my sweater in your dresser, your shoes by my door, the heat of your hand on my skin, the shape of my lips on your neck. When did it start, us leaving behind crumbs of our hearts for the other to find?

We’re inked. Not our skin but our fates, not by destiny but by our own design, tied with a string made of promises, the kind that can’t be broken. We have written ourselves together in this version of the story, the only one that matters. We’re linked.

We’re standing in line at the coffeeshop and you turn to ask if I want sugar in my latte. I shake my head and my eyes dip to your lips as I say, ‘You’re sweet enough.’ You roll your eyes and turn back around but not fast enough—you couldn’t quite hide your smile.

You’re my soft spot; the place below my ribs where my hunger lives, my strength and my weakness. What would I do for you? Oh, what wouldn’t I.

Pros of making me fall in love with you: endless devotion from the very start Cons of making me fall in love with you: endless corny poetry and an ever-bleeding heart

Can you feel it? Do you hear it? My heartbeat has a name and it sounds an awful lot like yours.

It’s been you since we met and it will only ever be you and I tried so hard for it not to be you but I also didn’t try at all because the first time you touched me you left a handprint on my heart and I’ve always known it was permanent.

It is said they walk hand in hand — love and hate — so maybe that’s why we rage bait. We could flirt, we could wait, but sometimes the easiest way to get someone’s attention is to test their patience. What’s a lover if not a playmate?

A height difference isn’t about centimetres. It’s about tugging on someone’s collar, folding them to your will as they bend down to meet your eyes, gentle fingers tilting your chin up. It’s about meeting halfway, with a kiss that is the sum of what two hearts weigh.

Unrequited love is vines growing around your rib cage, squeezing the air out of your lungs. Some-requited love is a seed growing from the soil of your heart and leaves sticking to the back of your throat. Requited love is coughing out the flowers and turning them into a bouquet.

This is what it feels like to write a love letter except it’s your heart you tuck between the pages. If flowers can be pressed, so can feelings, into words.

You are so loved. Do you hear me? You are so loved. You need to hear it — often, always, an endless amount — to make up for a time when you didn’t hear it at all. You are so loved; I’ll say it enough times to lose count.

I would rather annoy you than flirt with someone else. I would rather be annoyed by you than loved by anyone else.

I want to lose myself in stories, in art, in nature, in someone’s arms. I don’t get to keep this heart when I move on so I want to leave it scattered among everything I’ve ever loved.

‘Can I borrow your shirt?’ You ask, as if you don’t know the answer. You can have it all: the clothes, the books, the last bite off my plate; the seat next to me, the one you always claim. You can even have my last name.

Because one could love me better than you, no one could hurt me worse if this ended badly, if heartbreak is what it came down to. Every part of you is sweet, temptation with a smile, and every part of you is a dare. Do I?

We say ‘like’ because we’re afraid to say the stronger word, as if it were fine china to be saved up for special occasions, or something easily used up, something we can run out of. But the heart is a muscle; the more you love, the more you are able to love.

I want all your late nights and early mornings, your sunrises and sunsets. I want the pockets of silence and the outbursts of joy. I want you angry and sad and bored. I want you at your happiest, at your giddiest. I want your battle wounds, your scars. I want you as you are.

It’s a slow burn: the promise of a reward, the thrill of a held breath that comes before the relief of a long overdue exhale. It requires a little desperation, a modicum of obsession, spoonfuls of heartache. It’s a game of patience and you can only win if you play.