#howtofallinlove

I love love though it’s hard to put that into loving myself

I love Netflix movies that everyone hates, Irish tea, how potato chips taste so good

I love the shade of blue called Prussian and singing in the shower and Tessa Thompson

I want to write about love because I come from a generation where if I identify as aromantic, that means I am a robot who can’t feel anything

Let’s talk about the colors in sunsets but don’t fall in love with sunsets

Fall in love with Mother Nature and her child the Earth instead

Fall in love with the water that feels cool no matter what season, the air that helps us all breathe and doesn’t get mad if it gets left on read

Fall in love with the moon because it will always be there every night to say hello and won’t leave you on read

Fall in love with the people learning how to love themselves and remind them that you’ll be there to remind them each reason why your dimples appear when you think of them

I love that my father showed me it’s okay to cry even when the world told him he shouldn’t

I love that my niece knows just what I need in a bad mood and will agree with everything I’m saying when I vent

I love that my aunt understands what it means to be afraid of men in your life and how hard it is to let someone touch you

I love that there are thousands of people on the internet who understand how much I hate sex and how awesome it is when you finally figure out you do

I love that my therapist helped me choose my name and agrees that dysphoria is a scientific word, not a gender identity

... always feels special. My heart didn’t jump into the courtyard of the bar when we met, but I vomited relief when we parted. Grateful. I wish you had told me what you meant when you wrote “weird” and “awkward.” That it not only meant long stretches of silence. Single line responses. But spacing out, repeatedly, and not realizing there was another person with you, at the table. I was surprised you wanted cupcakes afterwards. Yes, I simply replied, when you asked. Although I haven’t had a cupcake since 2004, when my auntie hosted a welcome party for me with juicy red velvet cupcakes, from Vons. Who is Vons, I asked. My auntie laughed. And plugged a phone charger in her mouth. 

Since spending time alone means mostly observing, I have started finding it odd to see human express emotions on there faces. Where I live, people are either mad or holding on to a neutral face to cover whatever deceitful or depressed souls they have. When someone smiles, at me or just in general, I find it very intriguing. You have lips? You can move them? Stretch them? Your forehead, it also wrinkles. How can such an emotion flow from you, flow from someone that forgot how to be the so called and mainstreamed kind and generous person?

How can anyone show emotions on their faces? And what happened to the time when that was easy? When that was the “thing” ?