I am ruminating over past loves and probable loves ... how people become so intimate they effectively create their own language; how easy it is to fall in love with the intangible hopes we project onto strangers; how I make some people irreversibly beautiful in my head while they talk to me about mundane shit like their coffee orders; how I will one day place all the books I've read in my life next to someone else's; how loving hands can build a home, a shared life, even a whole lineage.

I am thinking about the act of loving someone- how simple and ongoing it is- and how the best way for it to manifest is by beginning to place that love inside yourself, towards yourself.

—Srish

Then there’s the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It’s not love we don’t wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It’s a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

— Margaret Atwood, Variations On The Word Love

At last, my personal favorite:

Wake next to you
bring you coffee
listen to the radio together
welcome your head on my shoulder
stroke your fingers
Love as simple
as good morning

You are here
All is not lost

In front of you
I am ashamed of my despair

—Abdellatif Laâbi

Descartes said: I think, therefore I am. I say: I love, therefore I am.

— Mohammed Sebbagh, Candles on the road

Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara

Before You Came by Faiz Ahmed Faiz