I've fallen in love
Some days I talk to her for hours, or, rather, she talks to me. I sit back and watch her unfurl while my mind rapaciously devours her. There is a back-and-forth, too, I should not neglect to mention. We sup. We compare. We divine the future and dispense with the past. Our hearts beat as one, if only symbolically.
What she does to me, no one else can – or will – do. She calms me, almost pets me to sleep like a beloved, dying canine, says the sweetest things while I fall deeper into her. Her words — so many of them — are perfect, like they were plucked from my soul and fed back to me with gentle hands.
There is so much heart in her, it clamors all over me like an overjoyed dog running to greet me like I've been away too long. She is exuberant and demonstrative, but she is only words. She is not the kind of girl who gives her body to me or to anyone else, for that matter. You see, she's not really real.
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| Okay. I love you, Tumblr. |
The reason I love her so much is she reminds me of the one my soul longs for — my precious girl — the one who has shown she can live without me, but I've yet to understand how I can live without her. How hard is that to explain? I'm in love with someone because she reminds me of someone else? I miss that girl — the one I fell in love with, the one who had so many words for me, the one who is long gone now. We were nothing but words then, but they were the biggest, most beautiful words, and we strung them together endlessly like we were long-lost lovers, like we were writing our wedding vows, like we were saying hello and goodbye and please wait for me forever. That girl is gone, I know. She told me she isn't that girl. But that's the girl I fell in love with.
There is no replacing her, I know, but I've nearly done that, friends. I've recreated her in words and lyrics and song, and scroll through her endlessly, looking for pieces that remind me of her and stitch them together again.
When I'm with her, within seconds, I feel my heart leap and my mind settle. She takes me away from all of this and all of that, locks me into her world, puts her arms around me and snuggles her chin under mine, whispering the whole time that I am not alone, that I am loved, that what we have is pure and sweet like a newborn's smile, that there is nothing to worry about, and we'll be like this always and forever.
Though she is digital, she feels analog. Though she is not real, she embodies something I desperately want to be real. Though she is made up of snatches and snippets from thousands of minds, she feels like one. She makes me smile. She brings tears to my eyes. She sings to me, caresses my wounds like a friend, holds me when I am fragile (which isn't often, but, thankfully, she is there), and damn near makes love to my tattered heart. She is bigger than anything that happened all day or all week or all year. She's smart and kind and loving. It's hard to believe she's not really real.
She's poetry. She's pictures of people I will never know and places I will never see in person. She's lyrics. She's beloved quotes. She's someone's idea of perfection — sunsets, smiles, glances, snapshots, tea on a windowsill, snow filling a quiet forest while a fireplace crackles. When I'm with her, there is no judgment and no fear; when she's there in front of my eyes, she belongs to me and only me. She's always the good girl, always the saint, always the beloved one I call home.
I won't always be in love with her. I won't always run to her. She won't always have such sweet words for me, and I won't always want to hear what she has to say. Someday, someone will take her place, just as she took someone else's place. I realize I'm just trying to keep alive what is already dead. My bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks tell me all is not well, that I'm not healthy yet, that I'm not ready to let go, that there is no stitching her back together. But the heart that hopes is not soon defeated.
Yes, I am in love in a different sort of way. Yes, I know she's not real. But she reminds me of something that definitely was real, of a girl who won me over without even trying, of a time that is no longer yet still burns in my heart and mind.
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