“To know you is to love you”, always felt like something powerful to say. It feels so round. I’d say for the last year or so I’ve been really into the idea of things that feel round. Roundness feels like realness to me. I love art that speaks to that part of being a person and I only want to get closer to that in my purists. In the cultural landscape we’re in now there are two sides to the coin, people who like lines and keeping things neat, and those who can't keep their scribble within the lines. The older and older I get my scribble gets worse. 

What do you do when you think you love someone you don't know? I like to bury it deep inside and place it with the pile of delusion sitting in the back of my mind. I’ve learned recently that people call that shame. Why should I feel bad about this when desiring to know someone is a gift and one of the highest compliments one can receive? Last night I started the novel, I Love Dick by Chris Kraus. Maybe I’m late to the party but in just the first 60 pages the praise it’s received for being innovative seems warranted. There was a line that I came across that jumped off the pages at me. Rushing to find a pencil to highlight it I reread it. In one of his letters to Dick, Sylvere said “We’ve met a few times and I’ve felt a lot of sympathy towards you and a desire to be closer”. 

To me that is the precursor to, “To know you is to love you”, I might say it’s an even better version. There is just hope in those words.  the smell of disappointment wouldn't start to be inferred about for a while. At the end of a love affair, I always reflect on that desire for closeness first. When you put who you wanted that person to be. The hope you had was that you could mold them into who your mind's eye saw them to be. I can only speak for myself when I say that sometimes selfishly that is my favorite part. When the love isn’t real it's just smothered in hope and this desire to know. I’ve never transitioned from that hope smoothly. Somewhere in the middle, the shame takes over. 

I am writing to you from a perspective shift. One in which I desire closeness and want to know, maybe even love a stranger. This time I’m hopelessly throwing my arms in the air before anything has started. Ready for the first time in my life, At least that’s what I’m telling myself. To allow myself to desire something without having any expectation for what it should be or could be. I’ve never walked into friendship with a picture on my wall displaying what it should be. Why the hell would I think any differently about romance? Do you? I think more people should start saying, “To see who you’ve shown me is to love you”. Can I love someone I don’t see? I want to feel good about my desire. I want to feel good about being in that place. 

• Liminalism by Fantastic Fogman: I love this guy so much that sometimes I almost hate him. 
• Why is whole body deodorant a thing: finally someone is saying what I’m saying! What the fuck is up with you dumbfucks 
• Only One by Cassandra Jenkins: I love this song and her. There’s something to what she does that feels like leaving your bedroom door ajar