Writing about love is hard, isn’t it? Especially when you’re not really the romantic type. So here’s my attempted response to today’s “love or anti-love” prompt from Poetic Asides.

The Non-Romantic Defines Romantic

 

adjective

conducive to or characterized by the expression of love

noun

a person with romantic beliefs or attitudes.

 

By definition then, who isn’t this? Who hasn’t

felt this?  Only monsters  unwilling to consider

the way the features of the person most desired

adopt a kind of supernatural glow at sunset.

Or the way electrical impulses of the heart disrupt

when the person most desired brushes their hand

against your thigh. Or the way hunger of the belly

dissipates when thoughts stutter over the person

most desired and  hunger of the soul takes over.

Or the way the voice of the person most desired

becomes the most pleasing vibration to pass through

the inner ear. Or the way scribes of every language,

every age, have fumbled for millennia to write a single

phrase that can capture the emotion stirred when the

person most desired looks at you and moves their

mouth into that gratifying shape known as a smile.