It happens to everyone. No matter how different you think you are or hope to be, there comes a point when your mouth automatically starts spouting terms of endearment. You can no longer just say “Hello” or “Goodbye” or even “Please pass me the salt.” They have to be preceded or rounded off with a loving term of endearment. So you surprise yourself with the first word that comes rolling off your unsuspecting tongue, which could be anything from sweetheart and darling to honey and baby. Then you cringe because that’s the last thing you want to say.

You hate yourself for repeating the same old words that have been served so many times before, by you to others and others to you, and by everyone else who has ever felt their hearts skip a beat (another cliché!). You don’t want to say these words that seem as inadequate as a bad understudy replacing a thespian. And yet, you have no idea what the main attraction of your show should be.

You desire a word that contains an entire world within it, one that expresses every single feeling and emotion evoked by only this one person. You’re looking for a word that’s pure and cool and clean and transparent like a perfectly frozen ice cube. A word that makes your spine tingle as it breaks the silence and fills the air with its magnificent presence. Like the first word ever uttered, without precedence or definition, untainted by the scent of anyone else that ever lived. Because this is exactly how you feel right now.

So you decide to wait until the word comes to you or its rightful recipient leads you to it one sunny morning, as you both sit in silence and catch the faint strains of music coming from afar. Or you may find it on a night when the moon is so full that you feel like it is bursting with the thoughts inside your own head. Then you dial a number and wait until the only voice you ever want to listen to answers in the same breath as you. And standing there, under the spell of a flawed yet beautiful luminosity, you surprise yourself when you utter the perfect word that encompasses everything you want to say.   

Until then, you do the next best thing – you just call out the name of the person who now occupies your brain. Each time you feel like your emotions can longer be contained inside your limited being, you pause to catch your breath and utter that name because to you it is pristine and perfect. You love the way it fits snugly inside your mind and then, whenever you will it to, rolls down into your throat where it takes on a voice before gently gliding over your tongue and staying perched on your lips. You whisper it so softly that only you can hear it at first, and then you watch as its echo washes over the owner of that perfect name. The one you have never used to call anyone else before, the one that will always bind you to this bliss and carry you with it to all the secret realms that the universe wants you to explore.