There are so many ways to tell someone that you love them.

There’s love in the desperate need of a kiss.  There’s love in the smile when you see each other.  There’s love in the way you hold them close, love in the way that closeness feels like home.  There’s love in the anchoring warmth of a hand in yours, finding each other wordlessly and inescapably.  

There’s love in between the lyrics of songs that you sing together.  You can see it in the long corny texts as much as you can see it in the short worried ones.  It passes any distance in “I miss you” or “I wish you were here”.  It’s transmitted in the meeting of eyes, the inside jokes, the small touches.  You feel it when you go out of your way just a few hours holding each other.

It burns in the want you feel to create every smile or giggle or moan that you can with another person.  It soaks the pages of your mind where you memorize every sweet spot that can be touched or bit or kissed.  Every single detail of a person that you memorize for it is tinged with it.  You memorize the feel of their skin, how they smell, how soft their hair is.  You memorize their favorite foods and bands and colors.  

There’s love in the forehead kisses and the nose kisses.  Love in the teasing and the playing.  There’s love in the whispered words and promises.  

You can write little ‘I love you’ ‘s with your mouth as dark marks on my collarbone while I leave my own on your thighs.  There’s love in the red marks your nails leave like medals for how I made you feel.  There’s countless secret little memories to be written in the time that you love someone.  There’s love in the time given happily, love in the gestures, love in the secrets that only we share.

The experiences you create with someone you love become consumed by it.  Love burns and drowns and devours and bites and kisses and remembers.  It grows and infects and makes whole.  

You spend your every action telling them that you love them. You just have to hope that they’re listening. Sometimes you can’t help it if they refuse to.