Young Writers Society

This feels like falling in love.

This, these sudden outbursts of emotion that I cannot handle. The moments when all of a sudden your name is everywhere, written on every nerve in my brain and scrawled inside of every blood cell, etched into the fabric of my heart. It’s like in the middle of my day some switch is turned and for a second I cannot move because I am paralyzed with the thought of you.

And I smile, one of those smiles that doesn’t just reach across my face but stretches all through my body and all through my thoughts, and then I shake my head and move on with my life with your name still held in my fist.

This feels like falling in love, these memories that never stay away for long, the favorite moments embraced forever in my mind. I remember fighting over the poker chips, wrestling with you on the floor and knowing with a sort of breath-taking hopelessness that of course I would lose, but holding onto your fists as tightly as I could anyway. I don’t know what it was that day, but that moment is perfect, and I can feel the memory as if I am there in Chicago again beating you at Poker.

And I do not know why I am still so afraid, so untrusting, so unsure. So much, all those things we’ve talked about and written about, holding me back and keeping my mouth shut.

But those moments.

Those silences when I stare into your eyes and my whole being is screaming into my ear. “I love you. I love you.” And I know more than anything else that I want to be with you, that I want to spend my life by your side, but somehow my lips stay closed anyway, and I look at my hands and tell a joke until the moment slides past.

This feels like falling in love, so many words I could share with you even after a five hour Skype conversation, the endless stream of words, of memories, of fears and hopes and all the mundane in between. Watching Skype freeze up as you smile because even the computer understands the pause in my heartbeat when your face lights up my world. You leave me behind so often and I just sit and listen to your voice more than I listen to your explanation of gravity or matter or the latest 3D printers, because while I hang suspended on your every word I sometimes cannot follow and hang on your voice instead, because in my ears your words are the best music and I am so happy to just listen.

And then there are the moments that seem to come so rarely, those days when you are so much more than an image on a computer and I am allowed to melt into your arms. There is a spot just between your neck and your shoulder where my head fits so perfectly. In Chicago, I pretended to fall asleep just so I could stay there, with my head right above your heartbeat.

Tonight I am listening to music, and every song sings your name. I am so afraid, because while I am fearless and courageous, deep down I am always terrified. And now my heart beats for someone else, and there is nothing I can do to take it back, nothing I want to do to take it back. So my heart waits in whatever secret place you’ve hidden it, begging me to give you my life as well as my heart. But the hesitation stays, the doubt lingers, and the world around me shouts that I am not ready, that I should hand you empty words instead and share “I love you” because I do, but I’m not ready yet. This feels like falling in love, and falling eagerly, yet slowly.

I am so confused, not sure what love means and not convinced in my own ability to give away such a precious gift. But I know, I remember every time you tell me that you love me, every time you call me your thief, your princess, that this feels like falling in love. That this must be falling in love.