sleep tight

It's probably not just by chance that I'm alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he's terribly strong. And if he's stronger than I, I'm the one who can't live with him. I'm neither smart nor stupid, but I don't think I'm a run-of-the-mill person. I've been in business without being businesswoman, I've loved without being a woman made only for love. The two man I've loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I've done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.

Nothing on this planet can compare with woman's love - it is kind and compassionate, patient and nurturing, generous and sweet and unconditional. Pure. If you are her man, she will walk on water and through a mountain for you, too, no matter how you've acted out, no matter what crazy thing you've done, no matter the time or demand. If you are her man, she will talk to you until there just aren't any more words left to say, encourage you when you're at rock bottom and think there just isn't any way out, hold you in her arms when you're sick, and laugh with you when you're up. And if you're her man and that woman loves you - I mean really loves you - she will shine you up when you're dusty, encourage you when you're down, defend you even when she's not so sure you were right, and hang on your every word, even when you're not saying anything worth listening to. And no matter what you do, no matter how many times her friends say you're no good, no matter how many times you slam the door  on the relationship, she will give you her very best and then some, and keep right on trying to win over your heart, even when you act like everything she's done to convince you she's the one just isn't good enough. That's woman's love - it stands the test of time, logic, and all circumstance.

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have unread book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That's the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She's the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the nondairy creamer is floating on top because she's kind of engrossed already. Lost in world of the author's making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. She if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce's Ulysses she's just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It's easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in a song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she's going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things : motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to climax. Because the girl who reads understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. 

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She'll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she's sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn't burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age togethet and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the show off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and halfbaked proposals, then you're better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. 

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

I'm lonely so I do lonely things, loving you was like going to war, I never came back the same. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for ride home. You're a ghost town I'm too patriotic to leave. I stay because you're the dream I want to remember. I didn't call him back because he likes his girls voiceless. It's not that he wants to be a liar, it's just that he doesn't know the truth. I couldn't love you, you were a small war. We covered the smell of loss with jokes. I didn't want to fail at love like our parents. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay. I'm not a dog. We were trying to prove our blood wrong. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things. Yes, I'm insecure, but so was my mother and her mother. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me. You were too cruel to love for a long time. It just didn't work out. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back. I can't sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth. I cut him out at the root, he was my favourite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home. The women in my family die waiting, because I didn't want to die waiting for you, I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me. You're the song I rewind until I know all the words and I fell sick. He send me a text that said "I love you so bad", his heart wasn't as beautiful as his smile, we emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you. I'm a lover without a lover. I'm lonely and lonely. I belong deeply to myself.