A much less formal response to Alex Dimitrov’s poem, “Love”
I ❤️ Irish goodbyes
I ❤️ obnoxious laughs
I ❤️ rabbits & their cotton ball tails
I ❤️ acting coy
I ❤️ tacky clothing
I ❤️ Virginia & how it’s for lovers
I ❤️ nail polish
I ❤️ the time of day where the sun starts to set & the evening starts to brew
I ❤️ my friends in different cities
I ❤️ checking a wristwatch
I ❤️ the color purple
I ❤️ mixed media
I ❤️ my culture
I ❤️ the ocean as medicine
I ❤️ carrying a deck of cards
I ❤️ mutable signs
I ❤️ Lady Gaga
I ❤️ playing phone tag with someone I don’t want to talk to
I ❤️ palm trees
I ❤️ cheap vinyls
I ❤️ being a Pisces rising
I ❤️ a new tube of lipstick
I ❤️ Kurt Cobain
I ❤️ astrology
I ❤️ wearing perfume to bed
I ❤️ weeping willow trees
I ❤️ making a silly face back at a child
I ❤️ baklava
I ❤️ my family across the Atlantic
I ❤️ poppers
I ❤️ stealing my leo mom’s stuff that I’d once said I hated
I ❤️ shakers
I ❤️ jellyfish at the aquarium
I ❤️ cabernet sauvignon
I ❤️ poetry
I ❤️ boyish names for girls
I ❤️ old professors & their crystallized intelligence
I ❤️ an empty row to myself on a plane
I ❤️ being woo-woo
I ❤️ air drumming
I ❤️ Susan Sontag
I ❤️ hearing other languages
I ❤️ my twenties
I ❤️ roses in every form
I ❤️ being a gemini
I ❤️ that time window from before we do it
I ❤️ hammocks in the woods
I ❤️ gas station coffee
I ❤️ the color red
I ❤️ keeping a list of potential names for my future daughter even though I’m not sure I’ll even have kids
I ❤️ train rides
I ❤️ the accomplished feeling of making my younger brother laugh
I ❤️ senseless ramblings & tangents
I ❤️ post night out spill sessions
I ❤️ doing nothing
I ❤️ silent mutual agreements
I ❤️ being left alone
I ❤️ being smothered
I ❤️ the wind & how it fuels me as an air sign
I ❤️ sitting with my feet up on a bench
I ❤️ driving alone with songs I’m crushing heavy on
I ❤️ resting my head in the lap of a loved one
I ❤️ Eskimo kisses
I ❤️ curling up in bed with friends to laugh or talk or do nothing at all
I ❤️ London Fogs
I ❤️ the earnest effort in between language barriers
I ❤️ a forbidden crush
I ❤️ Southern Gothic
I ❤️ unsettling weather
I ❤️ sinking into the bathtub
I ❤️ bitchy girls
I ❤️ the color blue
I ❤️ analog
I ❤️ the corner seat on a train with a book
I ❤️ jerk chicken
I ❤️ my mini book light
I ❤️ a glass of atay
I ❤️ the Union Jack
I ❤️ baking in the sun
I ❤️ being a hopeless romantic
I ❤️ pantoums
I ❤️ a hidden piercing
I ❤️ pastries as a love language
I ❤️ a sigh of relief
I ❤️ mood jewelry
I ❤️ the ritual apology to your guests/friends for your “messy” apartment & the “I don’t care” that inevitably follows
I ❤️ Agatha Christie
I ❤️ low rise pants
I ❤️ growing up in the South
I ❤️ blush
I ❤️ people who listen
I ❤️ rosemary
I ❤️ the bits of knowledge my capricorn father gives
I ❤️ Sylvia Plath
I ❤️ sudoku
I ❤️ the rare incidents where I’m convincing during the card game “bullshit”
I ❤️ the color green
I ❤️ butterfly knives
I ❤️ everything derived from an olive
I ❤️ pouting
I ❤️ a moody, cloudy, rainy day
I ❤️ optimism with a twinge of cynicism
I ❤️ the Mediterranean mindset
I ❤️ red nails
I ❤️ objectivity
I ❤️ Fiona Apple
I ❤️ love a good kisser
I ❤️ Jim Morrison’s hair
I ❤️ emerald as my birth stone
I ❤️ the Gwyneth Paltrow approach (a balance between the healthy & unhealthy i.e. tofu & cigarettes)
I ❤️ playing dumb
I ❤️ funny license plates
I ❤️ a covered porch on a rainy day
I ❤️ aggressively loving greetings with friends like “Hi Bitch”
I ❤️ being barefoot outside
I ❤️ an inside joke
I ❤️ linking arms with my friends through a nightclub like paper dolls
I ❤️ giving a warm smile to a stranger & getting one back
I ❤️ Soundcloud
I ❤️ ignoring people
I ❤️ garage rock
I ❤️ photobooths
I ❤️ chocolate as chocolate & vanilla as a flavor
I ❤️ fluffy cats
I ❤️ feeling rejuvenated around trees
I ❤️ bizarre personalities
I ❤️ still sand around me & a moody ocean in front of me
I ❤️ beauty marks
I ❤️ being here, now, nonetheless