The Lover's Dictionary: My version

Lover, n.

Oh, how I hated this word. So pretentious, like it was always being translated from the French. The tint and taint of illicit, illegitimate affections. Dictionary meaning: a person having a love affair. Impermanent. Unfamilial. Inextricably linked to sex.

I have never wanted a lover. In order to have a lover, I must go back to the root of the word. For I have never wanted a lover, but I have always wanted to love and to be loved.

There is no word for the recipient of the love. There is only a word for the giver. There is an assumption that lovers come in pairs.

When I say, “Be my lover.” I don’t mean, “Let’s have an affair.” I don’t mean, “Sleep with me.” I don’t mean, “Be my secret.”

I want us to go back down to that root.

I want you to be the one who loves me.

I want to be the one who loves you. 

Stanchion, n.

I don’t want to be the strong one, but I don’t want to be the weak one either. Why does it feel like it’s always one or the other? When we embrace, one of us is always holding the other a little tighter. 

Dumbfounded, adj.

And still, for all the jealousy, all the doubt, sometimes I will be struck with a kind of awe that we’re together. That someone like me could find someone like you - it renders me wordless. Because surely words would conspire against such luck,would protest the unlikelihood of such a turn of events.

I didn’t tell any of my friends about our first date. I waited until after the second, because I wanted to make sure it was real. I wouldn’t believe it had happened until it had happened again. Then, later on, I would be overwhelmed by the evidence, by all the lines connecting you to me, and us to love.

Basis, n.

There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you’re in-love with the person or in-love with the feeling of love itself.

If the moment doesn’t pass, that’s it you’re done.

And if the moment pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it’s even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route or your lover’s face.

Detachment, n.

I still don’t know if this is a good quality of a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it. Not just during sex, or while talking, or kissing. I don’t deliberately pull away — I don’t think I do — but I find myself in where I am. You catch me sometimes. You’ll say I’m drifting off and I’ll apologize, trying to snap back to the present. But I should say this: Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If i wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation mid sentence. I Would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second, I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you. 

Contiguous, adj.

I felt silly for even mentioning it, but once I did, I knew I had to explain.
“When I was a kid, I had this puzzle with all fifty states on it—you know, the kind where you have to fit them all together. And one day I got it in my head that California and Nevada were in love. I told my mom, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I ran and got those two pieces and showed it to her — California and Nevada, completely in love. So a lot of the time when we’re like this “—my ankles against the backs of your ankles, my knees fitting into the backs of your knees, my thighs on the backs of your legs, my stomach against your back, my chin folding into your neck—” I can’t help but think about California and Nevada, and how we’re a lot like them. If someone were drawing us from above as a map, that’s what we’d look like; that’s how we are.” 
For a moment, you were quiet. And then you nestled in and whispered.
“Contiguous.”
And I knew you understood.

Abstraction, n.

Love is one kind of abstraction. And then there are those nights when I sleep alone, when I curl into a pillow that isn’t you, when I hear the tiptoe sounds that aren’t yours. It’s not as if I can conjure you up completely. I must embrace the idea of you instead

Reservation, n.

There are times when I worry that I’ve already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else.

Motif, n.

You don’t love me as much as I love you. You don’t love me as much as I love you. You don’t love me as much as I love you.

Latitude, n.

“We’re not, like, seeing other people, right?” I asked. We were barely over the one-month mark, I believe.

          You nodded.

          “Excellent,” I said.

          “But I have to tell you something,” you added - and my heart sank.

          “What?”

          “At first, I was seeing someone else. Only for the first week or two. Then I told him it wasn’t going to work.”

          “Because of me?”

          “Partly. And partly because it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

          I was glad I hadn’t known I was in contest; I don’t know if I could have handled that. But still, it was strange, to realize my version of those weeks was so far from yours.

          What a strange phase - not seeing other people. As if it’s been constructed to be a lie. We see other people all the time. The question is what we do about it.

Viable, adj.

I’ll go for a drink with friends after work, and even though I have you, I still want to be desirable. I’ll fix my hair as if it’s a date. I’ll check out the room along with everyone else. If someone comes to flirt with me, I will flirt back, but only up to a point. You have nothing to worry about - it never gets further than the question about where I live. And in San Francisco, that’s usually the second or third question. But for that first question, where it still seems like it might be possible, I look for that confirmation that if I didn’t have you, I’d still be a person someone would want.

Encroach, n.

The first three nights we spent together, I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t used to your breathing, your feet on my legs, your weight in the bed. In truth, I still sleep better when I’m alone. But now I allow that sleep isn’t always the most important things.

Voluminous, n.

I have already spent roughly five thousand hours asleep next to you. This has to mean something.

Basis, n.

There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you’re in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.

If the moment doesn’t pass, that’s it - you’re done.

And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it’s even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover’s face.