Cat Fight In The Kitchen-Wattpad Rant

The "L" Word

Lately I've been reading a lot of lackluster romance novels, so while I have a few minutes, I thought we could talk about: The "L" Word (Love)

I read these stories and when the main characters decide they're in love that's literally it. They say "I love you". And then, to prove they're in love, they have sex (because that's obviously the only way to prove it (can you hear the sarcasm?))

This girl I met...she's enamored with my relationship. Sadly, I'm one of the most love struck people...my heels are WAAAAY over my head and I guess since I'm a fiercly independent person, it's kind of obvious. So she keeps asking me about it.

What's it like to be in love?

But I couldn't just tell her what it was like to be in love. Nothing felt right.

It took me months to finally send her a halfway decent answer and it came in the form of this piece that's tentatively titled "The End of All Things" (she suggested I post it here as a short story...but we'll see).

And I thought I'd use it in a rant to...I dunno. Give people the idea that it's not enough for characters to say "I love you". They have to mean it.

(And just a warning...I edit this every single time I read it, and I've also cut out some stuff, so it might not flow that well. If you see mistakes/typos, lemme know ;D)

Anyway...enjoy!

"The End of All Things"

For me, "love" isn't a strong enough word to describe the infatuation I have with him, because I'm not even sure exactly what it is that I'm feeling most of the time.

I think it just feels like being real.

Love is the way that I don't always notice his skin when it touches mine, because I feel him as simply an extension of myself. Then the silence comes and his easy caresses set my world on fire, making my flesh burn in the most vivid passion.

Love is the way he speaks with his hands. It's the way the callouses on his palms know how I feel without knowing anything at all. In the silence his fingers tell me how words will never be enough to describe the things my body tells him. They make promises to never utter a sound if ever he finds the phrases to translate what the nerves say.

And sometimes his fingertips trace my spine to understand the secrets I don't know I'm keeping. That's always my favorite. That's when we're truly alive.

Love is the color of his knuckles—white then beige, white and beige—when he pushes buttons and flips switches, trying to fix the parts I think are broken. To him nothing's wrong, but he doesn't quit trying. It's not about change. It's about making me feel alive.

Love is the way my chest pulses and my nerves dance when he's close enough to touch. It's how my jaw quivers when I smell him, or how my throat stings with the flavor of his sweat.

Love is the way it tastes to whimper his name and suddenly feel ashamed that it's such a simple word. All the things I want to say, the things I need to tell him cannot be captured in that one syllable.

The way my head spins with fantasy and my knees lock in the paralyzation of desire cannot be communicated through a word. This one word won't tell him that my stomach aches with eagerness for his laugh and my toes tingle in anticipation of the weightlessness of his presence.

But then he whispers mine and it's pure ecstasy. The way it slides out of his throat and tumbles off his tongue says that he can't explain what he feels either. And that's okay. His hands know what to say.

Love is the way I interpret his smile as reassurance that I make him feel alive, the same way he makes me feel real. With just a simple, sideways grin he says more than the word "happy" ever could. There is an edge of the resolute urgency of now on the corners of his mouth, and that excites him.

Love is the way that same smile spreads to his eyes when he watches the muscles tremor under my skin. It's the way he takes in my every motion as though he wishes he could reach out and grab the bones and the tendons and learn their most primal secrets. He wants to know every inch of me, inside and out.

Love is the way I'm mesmerized with his lips. They are the gatekeeper to the voice that makes the air in my lungs grow thin and the impulses of my nerves spark and singe. They taste like an exotic endorphin, both sweet and bitter, sharp and soft.

Love is the way all of the discord that remains unspoken builds up every day until it starts to crush you and you're left with nothing but a hapless lack of breath. Then, when the words finally come out, their bitter honesty makes you physically sick.

But as soon as they're vocalized, they don't matter anymore. They're just words.

And the hands always know how to apologize.

Love is when my makeup gets on the collar of his shirt. At first I don't say anything in hopes that he won't notice. Secretly, I want him to carry a part of me so intimately close to his throat.

Then I begin to notice how out of place it looks against his perfectly flawed demeanor. Suddenly, I realize that it's just an ugly mark on his reputation, so I tell him.

But no matter how I dab at it, careful not to let the discoloration spread, it won't come off. So he laughs. "Don't worry about it," he says. "It's not that noticeable."

And he's right. Unless someone were to look for it, they would never see the mark that says I was there. But I know. And he knows. And that's all that matters.

I guess that's the idea of love. You do everything you can to make the person you love feel alive while always being conscious of what happens if you have to leave. So when you go, if you truly love someone and they truly love you, it'll leave a bruise and not a scar.

We always resent the people that leave scars.

You can always survive with a bruise.

And I could survive without him.

When he's around, my life is intense emotion and extreme passion. If he were to go away, he'd take all those feelings with him and everything would just be shades of black and white.

But I could get by.

Because sometimes love is beautifully depressing.

And I guess that's what it means to me. That's what it means to him.

Lay us down. We're in love.