how do you feel?

although i would have liked to be asking of how you feel, this was not the intent of this post. but, since we've gone there anyway, how do you feel? i hope your description is laden with happy and positive descriptions, if not in word then at least in body and context. however, as i have implied, this is the question i would have liked to have posed, but it is not.

instead, i was thinking of how i am such a fuddy-duddy at heart. an old, decrepit, sage of willful and hopeless romanticism. of pondering thoughts and cliched gestures. i was thinking of how life and love have changed, and how i have not changed with them.

how do you feel about private walks in the park? of lying under an umbrella on a hot, sunny beach with no words to speak to each other? how do you feel of hidden flirty messages folded in teacups and under the saucers? of smiley faces drawn on your hand? how do you feel of love letters? and not moving to scratch that itch when one has fallen asleep on your shoulder for fear you would wake? and reading books on the train while silently smiling into the pages, thinking of one another? how do you feel of subtle gestures that are unknown to anyone but yourself? of secret signals? of nuances in a smile? how do you feel, of and for, the lost love for romance, the lost romance for love?

ask yourself this, and you might find that you don't really need to wait till valentine's day or someone's birthday to do that something you wanted to do but never could because everyone's just so busy. ask this, and maybe you think that these are wastes of time, which could be better put to working on something substantial. i care not, for i ask this only to myself, as you should to yourself.

how do you feel, for the loss of romance, and how she should have found her way to lush green forests, but only finds herself in a neverending, arid desert of forgottenness and bereft? how do you feel for your wanting heart, for the wanting heart of someone else?