Love comes often to those willing. It is audacious and bold, striking the hearts of both the suspecting and the unsuspecting. It is at its most raucous when the stars hang low in the sky during the late summer, eyes becoming universes rife with constellations. Even the Earth seems to stand still, turning precariously on its axis when love decides to let itself be known. The soft heat of the August night does nothing to stave off the shiver that caresses the back of your neck, falling dizzy from the close proximity. However, before love can fully bloom, the budding romance must first stride through initial shyness to feel the weightlessness of indescribable yearning.

There is no definite beginning to yearning, no revelation of the self to concur that the feeling is there. It simply exists, prior to meeting, ensconced in the soft tissue in your chest waiting to become emblazoned. It quietly settles into your subconscious and wraps around your head, beckoning and crooning at you to follow its lead.

What does it mean to yearn for someone? To burn so brightly for them that nothing can stifle your light? Where does the yearning come from, and where does it start? Why does it consume you and plague your very being? Yearning is delicate and fierce, unyielding to the logical reasoning postulated by the head, yielding only to the palpitations of the heart as if it is morse code trying to tell you all the ways someone makes your heart race.

Yearning is quiet and lingers long after infatuation. It is true and steadfast, not made out of hopes and fantasies, but a foreseeable reality that can only be seen when gazes are held together and when hands brush so lightly. Featherlight, a gossamer touch that ghosts over you whenever you close your eyes. Why do we love to yearn? To have our breath expelled by the very sight of our partner. Sweetly tense at the prospect of a painfully slow, painfully sensual touch that soothes you in the night but antagonizes you in the day.

To be certain of your desires is the true core of yearning. To want someone so wholly that it manifests in your being, thoughts, and actions. A meaningful magnetism is created that brings each other into sharp focus, peering and drinking in each other’s magnificent forms. The night does wonders for yearning. It allows you to imbibe on the sweet wine, becoming drunk on your emotions and the acknowledgment of theirs. Fluttering pools of molten honey turned into onyx under the weighted gaze, lips parted waiting, savoring the moment of falling over the precipice into a long-standing love. A rapturous excitement comes about when formally breaking the period of yearning. No longer do you have to sit silently in your feelings, but instead let them be a boisterous roar.

There is something poetic about living in the ache of your wanting: letting the intoxicating pain morph into honeysuckle kisses, open-mouthed and tender; feeling the pulse on your wrist thunder with excitement and anticipation; becoming ravenous and fervent after longstanding coyness.

However, the sweet ambrosia of love can sour in the throat and bring pain if left untouched. Leaving yearning to rest and fester, only dipping into it in small doses is never enough to soothe the soul. It only makes you thirstier, leaving you to choke on the acrid taste of decaying love. In time, bitterness can consume you and eat away at your hope and reverence for romance until it transforms into anger at yourself and love itself.

In a culture that prioritizes productivity and accomplishment over love and long-lasting human connection, it is not difficult to understand why the subject of yearning is only broached when discussing romance media. In the same regard, love has now been cheapened and relegated to a manufactured Hollywood fantasy. People no longer feel compelled to act on their desires so they stifle the ember that perpetually burns. The fear of lovelessness has never been more acute which causes people to adopt a faux disdain for feelings and honesty.

Humanity and love are intrinsically linked, both having the same characteristics. Prioritizing one means prioritizing the other. Love speaks of truth and intimacy speaks of quiet-kept secrets; they both imbue life with vigor and act as the bringers of jollity. Through self-reflection and persistence, one can kindle the ember into a roaring flame. These feelings are meant to be experienced and savored; these stories are meant to be retold and written into the mythos of the true meaning of love. There is no one way for love to manifest and be expressed. We are a series of complex anthologies, heart-warming and heart-wrenching in equal measure.

Before the night ends and the wine sours, be honest and true.

Let your yearning heart burn brightly, for you have so much love to give.