Happy.

Twitter thread by Melissa Caruso about a labyrinthine magical bookstore in Syracuse, NY. Link to the first tweet in the thread; most pictures have image descriptions! Now here are the screenshots of that thread:

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 you— i am forgetful of everything but seeing you again—my life seems to stop there— 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 affection— 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.