Valentine's Day

(Creative Commons License, xkcd, Randall Munroe)

I'm single this year, but it doesn't really rankle. In Thai culture, as I mentioned on the Facebook fan page, Valentine's Day is a more general Celebrate Love day, rather than strictly romantic. So my grandmother sent me a card all the way from Bangkok, and my mother keeps fretting about me checking my mail today and the competence of the post office. Also, campus dining lets us use flex dollars to pre-order chocolate-covered strawberries, some of my favorite things.

Also, if you're reading this blog, thank you and all the emoticon hearts you could ever desire.

Roses are red,
Violets are purple,
Which is a very hard word to rhyme
And makes me happy that on February the 14th we don’t traditionally have to give each other oranges.

- Neil Gaiman

300 for 30: Day 26

Poem #1: I Love You More Than Warcraft

I love you more than Warcraft, he said
And I've played that for seven years.
I love you more than fanfic, she said
And I've written that for seven years,
I love you more than xkcd, and more than LotR,
I love you more than looking up to see the shining stars.

I love you more than fantasy, she said,
I love you more than steampunk.
I love you more than tinkering on my computer, he said
And Asimov and Heinlein
To balance obsessions against adoration can sometimes be a fine line.

I love you more than Firefly, he said
I love you more than Minecraft.
I love you more than Doctor Who, she said
And favids and photoshops
I love you more than Deadpool, and more than Sherlock Holmes
I want us to join together and build a geeky home.

Your touch is greater than scientific dreams
Your kiss more glory than prizes
I fear no spoilers or Adaptation Decay
When I'm faced with such surprises
That the pleasures buoying me up so long
Have brought me here to you
Sleep to this lullaby we made
And I'll hold you all night through.


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Poem #2: What You Have Done

Be with me when I'm far away,
Every third thought is of us -
Never have I known such warmth.
Jubilation when I come to stay,
Adoration I've come to trust.
My shining light I carry now.
In sickness I found your hand in mine,
Now health shines on worst of days;
Wellness is loving and being loved,
Realizing when you find
Incadescence far away -
Go to it, make it yours.
Have I done enough to let you know
The worth you have for me?
Say what I may, while I still am
Overcoming darkness below,
Now I'm healing faster, since you have set me free.

300 for 30: Day 6

I generally try to keep the men and women I date - or pine for hopelessly - out of my work, for similar reasons that it's a bad idea to get a tattoo of their name. They betray, they dwindle, they turn out different than you thought, they fall in love with someone else and let them break their precious heart that you would have cherished and nurtured (or at least you think so, when in reality you are just as prone to shattering others as anyone else is).

I do write them little poems and essays sometimes, just for them, but I don't consider that "work". It's tentative wooing. There was one young lady with porcelain skin, except for the slightest dash of brown freckles, springy hair, a profile like a Victorian cameo, the greenest of eyes, and a scatter-brained joie de vivre that I found enchanting. I never got the courage to tell her how I felt, I've always been so shy with the women, but I taped a yellow rose to her dorm room door with a note saying I wanted her to know she was admired by someone who wished her well. The only woman I've been in a relationship with was trans, which mattered to me not a mite, though she was so uncomfortable with her own body that I couldn't press her to show it to me. I would have loved every bit of it, pre-op awkwardness and all. It took me a long time to get over her. I still wish her well.

But oh, my significant other at the moment (male), my love, my dear, he's like the quiet, warm sunrise after a series of brilliant - but ephemeral - shooting stars. He's the first person I've dated steadily that I didn't see some kind of doom impending with, something that would inevitably separate us. He's the first person I have equal give and take with, who can provide comfort and strength at my times of weakness but who needs them from me at other times as well. He smells like home and hearth. I can imagine him intentionally hurting me the way I can imagine him repeatedly, purposefully hitting himself with a hammer - it's physically possible, but why on earth would he ever? He makes me laugh and he loves to just lie beside me, us holding each other, sometimes so comfortable that we drift off to sleep in that clutch, the lights still on.

I hope hope hope nothing bad happens to him, to us, that we keep on going like this. We're separated at the moment because I'm visiting my parents, but we both know we're going to run to each other with glad cries.