this is how i love you; darling, i would defy all of it i will contain the universe inside me so it might stop expanding towards oblivion, so time could stop putting oceans between us as i foolishly believe that there is something much more at play here, more powerful than fate, more contagious than magic or the universe's energy, more concrete than science, more transcending than art, something more than love---more than a feeling that can be contained by the beating oddity caged by our fragile frame all tender flesh, sweat, and sinew, laid to rot once time comes full circle. because i foolishly believe that even after death, whatever this is will continue to bloom through the cracks of the earth, haunt other empty hearts until it finds a love reciprocated so fervently that it will forget residing in loneliness here in my own heart. this is how i will love you; constantly even if it is only from the safest distance i could manage. i will love you in all languages my heart is fluent in; in sudden epiphanies, in bad metaphors, in incoherent murmurs of joy, in silent tears, in i love you's tucked in nightly prayers. even if your heart isn't capable of comprehending the way i love and even if it never reciprocates. -w.