This Is How You Know You’re In Love

When you close your eyes and breathe, you can’t help but imagine yourself with that person, can’t help but feel their touch on your skin, their smile lifting the corners of your mouth, their kiss setting off both a spark and a calm somewhere in your soul.

When you laugh, you crave the sound of their laugh mixed with yours. You want to tell jokes, just to hear the sound of their breath leaving their lips. You want to watch the way their head tilts back in abandon, the way their arms outstretch or cover their mouth unconsciously. You want to kiss that smile, melt it into yours. You want each moment to stretch and grow and last forever; time simply bears no weight when you’re together.

When something happens, whether good or bad, you want to share it with that person. You construct texts in your mind throughout the day of things to tell them. You can’t wait to put the phone to your ear and tell them all the little pieces they’ve missed, or open the door to their embrace and spill yourself at their feet.

You long to know all the tiny parts of them—the secrets, the stories, the lives they’ve lived outside of you. You want to know them, physically, emotionally, spiritually, completely.

When it’s three in the morning and you roll over, your arm drifts to their side of the bed, searching for their warmth or aching so deeply for their presence next to you. When it’s two in the afternoon and you’re yawning, you imagine what they’d say to you, or what they’re doing, a few cubicles or three thousand miles away from you.

You want them, all hours of the day. But not just their physical self. You long for a soul connection. You want their heart, their mind. You crave knowing them, understanding them, entangling your heart and life with them.

When you’re with that person, your heart skips, your palms sweat, your entire body buzzes with life. And yet, you’re overwhelmed by calm, by tranquility, by pure, numbing joy. With them, you are both fearful and fearless, wild and at rest. You want to stay up all night and talk, and yet, you also just want to lay your head against their chest and breathe in the silence.

When you think about your future, you cannot imagine it without them. You cannot see yourself days, weeks, months, years down the road without that person’s hand intertwined with yours. You unconsciously imagine the dates you will go on, the events you will attend, the places you will travel, the dinners you will cook together in a time down the road. Suddenly you aren’t scared of what lies ahead of you, but excited to know you have someone to share it with.

You fight. You fight to stay together, in spite of your differences, despite all odds. You don’t always want to be right, but to understand. You don’t want to walk away, but to stay, even when you are your most angry.

You don’t want to lose what you have, so you fight to find a middle ground without losing yourself. There’s this part of you that can’t seem to, and doesn’t want to ever let go. You fight because you cannot fathom no longer having them to fight with.

When you think about your life, you realize how blessed you are to have that person in it. You are thankful for the ways they challenge you, strengthen you, teach you, and let you bloom. You are inspired by their passion, by the way they care for you, by who they are, and are growing into by your side.

You aren’t so much worried about what the future holds because you know you have a friend, a partner, an equal, a force who will take on the highs and lows with you. You know that whatever you face, you won’t have to face it alone.

When you talk about them, sometimes you gush and can’t stop, and sometimes it’s as if you’ve known one another all your lives. Sometimes you’re overflowing with passion, talking about their hands, their eyes, their smile, their touch. It’s as if you’re a little kid again, admiring your crush with such wildness and desire. But sometimes you speak with such calm. You’ve settled into comfort, into familiarity, into a wonderful, beautiful tying of your souls that it seems you’ve always been together, that there never was a time before.

You desire them. You desire their mind, their heart, their soul. You want to support them at their weakest and inspire them at their strongest. You want to touch every part of them; you want them to touch and understand crave you.

When you think about their presence in your life, you want to be better. You’re inspired to become the best version of yourself and to fight to improve and grow and be all that you’re capable of for the both of you. When you wake up, you’re thankful, simply for another day by their side. You can’t help but fall a little deeper every day, and that’s scary and wonderful all the same.

You’ve never really thought about love, never really understood the weight of the emotion, or how one knows love or feels it in their lives. But with this person, you simply know.

You now understand that the saying was right, there are some things in life that cannot be explained, just felt. And this is one of them.

Marisa Donnelly is a poet and author of the book, Somewhere on a Highway, available here.