Love Me Simple

He sits leaned up against the car door, smile perched cheekily upon his face. The raindrops that background him dance a slow tango down the car window and the night is a black silhouetted by the glow of streetlight orange.

“I think,” he begins, and I lazily open my lids to listen, to watch his words wander on sound waves, his lips forming with articulation, his mouth creating, producing that voice that I have come to know and love and recognize and crave.

“That love is this. Sitting in a car, talking.”

It’s so simple. I smile at him because it’s not that easy. Love is messy and dirty and there’s fights and struggles and anger and awkward coldness between best friends on sad lonely nights.

It’s not that straightforward. Right?

Just sitting. Not doing anything extravagant or impressive or exhilarating or adrenaline raising or catch your breath exciting or romantic or thrilling.

Just in a car. Not in Paris watching the Eifel tower light up with fairy magic, or in Venice listening to an operetta, or even sharing a hot dog at the ball park.

Just talking. Being content with each other and our life, and our life stories, and our thoughts, and our wishes, and our silly jokes, and our love-sick mutterings.

And all those things that I mentioned? Going places, doing things – I wouldn’t want to do them without him.

So maybe this is love.

“What’s one word to describe this night?” He asks me, because he does things like that, because he makes me think, because he likes to hear my thoughts.

“Intimate,” I say. Because we sit in a car. Rain dripping down the sides, sleepiness wrapping itself cozily around us. And we talk and we love, and we know each other better even now than just two hours before.

And I suppose that, simply, this is love.