A love letter to your family

and other musings on expansive love—

How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 2003

Let me tell you, 
my dream of romance has always been lonely. 
Individualistic. A secret magic shared by only two 
bodies and souls meant to intertwine
     f o r e v e r, 
and everything else
will m
           e
             l
               t
              away
like sugarcane juice

Then, one Sunday afternoon
in your kitchen,
   the living room— 
I see it now,
    I do;

I see how my love laughs just like you
smiles just like you 
cares the way that you do— 
I see it now, 
    I do, I do; 
Love is not aloof

Love is not aloof
Yes, let me tell you,

the antithesis to 
my self-philosophies 
of love 
    is you.

se.

---

There was something cosmic about it—

How his grandma cupped my face, his mother hugged me tight, his dad patted the top of my head goodbye. Love has always been something of an exclusive affair to me. It is, but that is not what I mean. I mean to say that it was something that only knew two souls and nothing else. I thought love would have walls in its garden, housing the only two people who cherry-picked each other like ripe fruits in the summer. I thought love was Eden, secluded, ethereal, dedicated. It wasn’t. It isn’t. It’s more expansive like the earth, with roots that stretch its legs deeper into soil, grounded. A place that propagates and grows and gifts seeds by the season, multiplying.

On a Sunday afternoon in September, I’d met his family for the first time over lunch and soup. I didn’t think much of it other than an event I would like to ace and write about in my diary. But there was something cosmic about stepping foot inside the home that made him, him. The paintings, the photos, the notes on the fridge, the smells, the way their voices bounced off the walls—there was something cosmic about emerging from our holy garden and exploring the world beyond it, then finding out that love is so much bigger than us.

Months would pass, and I would find myself crying on my bed because I was thinking of these foreign but familiar fruits. I think about how much of my love is made up of them, and them of him, and how love is more than just two souls combined; they are now less foreign, and more familiar; they are now my family too.

Now I think, if it’s love—real love—it’ll always be expansive. It doesn’t close you off from the world, and that’s what makes it real. It might not be some sacred garden, but it is a paradise bigger than the two of you. A place that can hold more. And I think there’s just something cosmic about knowing that perhaps your love is much bigger and transcendental, and that it exists beyond your garden walls.

---

Thank you for reading my little musings and poetry! It means a lot to me that you are here, reading through my diary of sorts. Know that I can’t wait to read yours too :)