there once was

THE LOVER'S DICTIONARY BY DAVID LEVITHAN

i was up even before the cacophony of an awakened city was conjured. it felt good to listen to silence; i could hear the flowers yawn & sigh, the sun bright & stretching with delight, the field behind my house breathe. maybe i should start waking up early just to sit in comfortable rare silences with the earth. picked this book from my bookcase because it seemed nothing too heavy (both literal & non-literal), just right for a tired bone

my afterthoughts on this book are however otherwise. it was indefinitely an easy read yet i don't think i've read anything as provoking, as raw, as simple as this. this was, obviously, levithan's direct view/take on 'love', minimally processed into fictional narration hence i believe the title 'dictionary'. i felt like i was looking almost directly into someone else's mind before i realised that i was beginning to look into my own mind. i couldn't help but scribble down, in pencil on the book itself, my take on certain heading words then folding the pages: something everyone that knows me would recognise by now as against my belief system of the sacredness of books

i completed this book in 3 hours (of which 1 hour was spent in the library during chinese period taking shots of the ones i really like as i read & sending them to matthew just because i had to tell someone) but i dare not say that i have fully grasped the essence of each heading word, simply because almost each time that i reread what levithan wrote, i think i understand him in a different way. i think i understand myself in another way. i think i understand things in ways that i never knew existed. but perhaps i can never fully fathom those words. perhaps the meanings are always changing. perhaps words will only ever make sense in the way we want them to

i think i'll type out some of my favourite parts. here they go (the ones on 'juxtaposition' & 'reservation' remind me of something i recently read on thought catalog - felt excited while reading them in this book)

ineffable, adj.These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough. 

juxtaposition, n.It scares me how hard it is to remember life before you. I can't even make the comparisons anymore, because my memories of that time have all the depth of a photograph. It seems foolish to play games of better and worse. It's simply a matter of is and is no longer. 

reservation, n.There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else. 

raze, v.It sounded like you were lifting me, but it all fell.

vagary, n.The mistake is thinking there can be an antidote to the uncertainty.

zenith, n.I'm standing in the bathroom, drying my hands on your towel, and you're hovering in the kitchen. I am happy from dinner, happy the day is over, and before I can ask you what's going on, you tell me there's something we need to talk about.
This is it, the moment you tell me the precise thing I don't want to know.
Is this the zenith? This last moment of ignorance?
Or does it come much later? 

i enjoyed this very much