Deb

“You’re only a mouse if you let them make you one.”
― Christina Henry, Alice

“You know what I love? The spaces between I love you. The tap of your fork against the plate and how my cup of wine clicks against our table. The scratchy voice coming from the radio in the other room. The quiet sound of your hand reaching across the table and whispering over mine. How your voice sounds like your mouth on the back of my neck. The soft murmur of our easy conversation.

Between these quiet Tuesday night routines, following every comma and right after every pause for breath, is I, love, and you. In the middle of every I love you is a sink full of dishes, whisper of socked feet tangled in white sheets, and gentle kisses against curved cheeks. We lyric ourselves into the laundry that needs to be finished, into the ends of every smile that follows me repeating your name. We write ourselves into the grocery bags we need to carry, the cracks running up our rented walls, the sides of the bed we choose to drag up the sails of heavy eyed dreams.

Like the spaces between our fingers, in the spaces between I, love, and you, we wait.

The in-betweens have always been my favorite.”
― Marlen Komar, Ugly People Beautiful Hearts

“You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr Seuss

“Ove stomped forward. The cat stood up. Ove stopped. They stood there measuring each other up for a few moments, like two potential troublemakers in a small-town bar. Ove considered throwing one of his clogs at it. The cat looked as if it regretted not bringing its own clogs to lob back.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove