a paper love, that’s all. i fell for you because when you were walking to class you mimed forgetting your phone before turning around. i fell for you because as you held your dog’s leash, you let him pull his way towards me. i fell for you because i heard you on the phone saying “it’s a beautiful sunset here too, mom”. i fell for you because you reached for your glasses before reading something or for the look on your face when you saw the raccoon in our yard or the way your shoulders shifted during the movie. i folded you and your face into my pocket. i don’t know your name, but that’s okay. i have so many of these loves that they have formed libraries.
in the white space of my depression i take out each little paragraph of love. a woman who passed me hot sauce because she overheard me asking my partner. a little girl and her kitten. a man singing a lullaby to his daughter. these are good places and people to keep. they are weightless, you see. when i am drowning i remind myself: here is love, if it exists.
and if i exist, maybe i am in someone’s library of goodness. they saw me dancing in my car to my chemical romance in the year 2019. they heard me reciting shrek as if it was romeo and juliet. they watched one of my silly, lonely moments - and i was not alone, then. even if i felt it so wide and hungry that it took up all the space in me. if i can love a shadow, then maybe a shadow might love me. it is okay i do not get confessions or movie dates or songs written about me. it is okay if the love i get is just this, a flashing, to remind someone: the world is so lovely, and we are all stories worth remembering.
