What Have You Done to Me?

I attempt to remain composed as I speak to you on the phone, your voice silvery and smoky all at once. We speak of nothing in particular, though your feminist rants force a small smile from the corners of my lips. We say good-bye. We end with “I love you”. Suddenly, my composure held together so tenuously by the strings of self consciousness not wanting to let you know exactly how your words make me feel collapses. Even the nothings we say to one another, somehow, are more meaningful in my mind than the complete works of Shakespeare or the storied pages of a Dostoevsky novel. Why? I do not know. What I do know is this: I love you. I love you as best I know how. I love you, because love is something I haven’t yet figured out how to ignore, for if I could, I would be studying for finals rather than fixating on the curvature of your nose—I love you. And that love refuses to be tamed, fails to be silenced, and will not remain in the backseat of my life; so you—know you are worth it, and even if my rational self wishes it could deny that fact, my heart cannot. So while the phone is hung up, and you have gone about your life, your words still ring in my ears

"I love you".