What Being In Love Actually Feels Like

It's not the fireworks. Fireworks are loud and beautiful and over in seconds. Being in love is the thing that comes after— the quiet drive home with the windows down and someone's hand on your knee and the radio playing something you'll remember forever but can't name right now. It feels like being found— not rescued, not completed, not any of those fairy tale verbs— just found. Like someone finally saw the room you've been standing in and said: oh, there you are. I've been looking. It feels like being less afraid— not fearless, just less. The dark is still dark but there's someone breathing next to you and the breathing is a kind of light. It is not perfect. It is not the poem you were promised. It is better: it is real, and real has morning breath and bad days and the specific imperfection of someone who chose you knowing you're exactly this flawed and said: yes. Still yes. Always yes.