So love wasn't something that had eluded me. I've had it, felt it, tasted it, loved it, wept in it, lost it, drowned in it, bathed in it, lapped it up, craved its touch, and I've not once regretted it. I mean, perhaps I've regretted it a tonne at the time, but it always led to some discovery or another about myself that I could then grow from. Do I wish I had experienced the heartache that had gone hand in hand with love?! Fuck no! Because I still had a little heartache, always would, from that great love that echoed inside of me.

So..., love, once you've had it once, you know the signs, and you recognise the stirrings of it when you feel them.

The look

It starts with a little catch of the eyes, there's something there, a twinkle, and you want to look again. They draw you back, and if it's reciprocated, you might catch them eye you again, and you know then... there's a base line...

The thoughts

They come in quickly like a rolling tide, once you've had the look and the interest is there, suddenly they pop up into your thoughts like a recurring character in your favourite sit com. They appear when they shouldn't, and you start to obsess a little, excited at their presence. There are many questions about this person that you have never even wondered about before. Why were they suddenly everywhere? What is she doing right now? Does she like girls? Clearly she does, the look wasn't a friendly one. I wonder what her lips taste like? Her lips... a visual that pops into your head, never obsessing over a body feature more... and it usually starts there... with the lips. A little later it will be the touch of her skin, the wanting to touch... but at the beginning if it's flutters of love, it's not usually her breasts you think of, although who doesn't think of the perfection of a woman's form and just sigh.

The energy

When there's a pull, there's an energy. The electricity between you. I know you know what I mean, some people vibe off of you like fork lightening. They enter your space, either physically or mentally, and the hits you take from them make you feel alive, like a drug is entering your system each and every time they are close. If it's a long distance love, it's the same but it's with each and every message you see from them. Every time you see them typing back your heart races, and with one word the energy transcends the distance and hits you like that fork of lightening. Energy does not always equate to love, you can flirt with a persons energy just fine and never be romantic with them, but it's an ingredient and a sign that if tapped into, your energy could dance... together.

First touch

So you've had the look, you vibe with their energy, and you've felt the obsession growing. Now one of you is going to make the mistake, or not, of touching for the first time, and I don't mean sexually or even romantically... I mean that slight brush of their hand against yours, the accidental arm to arm, and god forbid it's the accidental touch of your torso. It's a hand on your waist, or your hip, as they try to move around you, or stop themselves from falling over you... there's something about that touch that will make your stomach flip faster than a burger at a state fair. This is when you are at your most vulnerable to the paralysing realisation you need this to become more. This is no longer friend territory, this is someone you must kiss or it feels like it would be the end of the world, and if this is the first... that first touch of it... I'm going to go out on a limb and say you are about to fall flat on your face in love with someone who either does or doesn't deserve you and there's nothing you can do now it's begun. Go with it, and know when to leave it if the love should sour, although this mostly comes with experience, because love goggles are real and all of us have overlooked red flags when the intense desire to be with someone has clouded your judgement. Don't beat yourself up. I've been there. We all have, you live, you love and you learn. Girls, boys, humans, we have all learnt from being burned at-least once.

First kiss

There's good ones, there's bad ones, there's sloppy ones, and there's teeth filled ones. There's the ones that feel as if they are going to eat your face, the ones that bite, the ones with braces, the ones who go in the same direction you do, the head butting ones, and the cringy ones.

The kisses to look out for, and the ones that are sure signs, are the ones that fit, they go top lip, you go bottom lip and vice versa. You fit perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle. I go bottom lip each and every time, and so when I kiss, they better be a top or I am having a bad kiss... there's a science to it. I've had enough kisses to now hold the formula in my hands to that perfect one.

The perfect kiss fits, it's gentle, a tongue is most definitely not forced into anyones mouth. It should be a slow discovery of each other, more intimately, and this shouldn't be a race to an end. It should be a slow build, there is plenty of time to kiss more intensely.

However... if you are drunk when this kiss occurs, all bets are off, and if it's the first, you may get giddily into it to the point you go from A to B in five minutes. This has most definitely happened before, first kiss, hands roaming bodies, intense sucking face, kisses moving to necks and then stomachs and you get the picture. That kind of first kiss, the drunk one that ends in fucking, I won't lie...the next day it will be mortifying. You didn't get to dance through the stages of intimacy one at a time and build the moment up. It's gone and now there's no way to take it back... and you will have to actually look at each other again and face it. I don't know, some people like to experience that first time drunk so all inhibitions are gone, but I don't... I want to take in every detail of her, and to have her remember it as I will. Mind you, I've always been into the mental build up... probably because so many have only wanted me for my body, they desire it, want it, take it and then pat themselves on the back for it. I want more than that if this person and I are on the trajectory of love.

I've only had a handful of first kisses that really made my knees weak, my heart race, and my skin prick with goosebumps. The sensations that fill your belly with those kisses, they are so intense you feel as if your entire body is filling with the flitting of butterflies. It is like they have come from them, through your mouth and down inside of you, like a chemical reaction, their biological makeup and yours... they are reacting together, cause and effect. This person is most probably someone you could fall hard for, because your body recognises something about them, there's a familiarity, you fit, and if you ask me, this is one of your people.

There's an entire world of humans out there, 7.9 billion of us, but we don't match with over 99.9% of them. So, imagine if each one of us had say 1000 other people in the world who we match perfectly with, what are the chances of meeting? In various countries, and various states. You could live in the same city with one and pass them all the time in the street, and not know it. I think this is where destiny comes in, fate, and if you ever hear a good love story, the amount of times a couple met by chance as if it was fated all along. One missed flight, being somewhere they shouldn't, falling for a person they were not allowed to, and the list goes on but you catch my drift.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have been here too long and seen way too much, to not believe in fated meetings.

***
"What are you up to?" Lydia asks, her voice a comfort as I sit out on the veranda with a glass of wine. The night is warm. I've come home, thrown my dress off, put a t shirt on and now I'm laying out on sun lounger under a blanket of stars debating love and life and how fucked my love life has always been.

"I'm sat out with a glass of wine... looking up to the stars thinking about things I shouldn't" I confess.

I sigh and sip from my wine, it's stem resting between my fingers and balanced on my chest between my breasts as I lay there.

"Tell your little sister" she demands "what is it you shouldn't be thinking about"

I swallow the wine and look up to the North Star, following the constellations I knew like the back of my hand.

"Did you know Perseus and Andromeda, they were great loves, they were placed into the sky by the gods, so that their story would never be lost... their love story. I'm looking up to them and even after a millennia, their constellations, they are still so close together, taking turns to rotate around the North Star" I say mindlessly, a little slur here and there, looking up to the stars a little drunk, slightly blurry.

"Oh Morgan... how many have you had" Lydia asks.

I hazily look to the wine on my chest and tip it back a little, letting the glass rest on my lips before taking a large sip. The watermelon and strawberry flavour of it makes me think of Leah and her lips.

"Only one" I defend "bottle" I add with a smile.

"Is this about Annie" Lydia asks.

"I mean of course... we've had a whole decade together and now it's all coming to an end. I didn't think Annie and I would ever be here... at the end of us"

"I'm sorry Morg" Lydia says empathetically.

I take another sip of the wine and look back to the twinkling above me in the pitch black of the sky.

"It's okay... I don't think it was meant to be. I thought it was but you know the longer I'm away from her the more I see it...and I've just realised Lyd... that I've never looked to the stars and ever thought about Annie... do you think that's weird?" I ask frowning.

"Morgan I can't say I make a point of looking to the stars thinking about any of my past boyfriends... so no I don't think that's weird" she says almost trying not to laugh.

"Well not for you... but for me... I can't look at them without thinking about certain people... knowing the love that lives up there in the myths and the tales I've read. It always makes me think of great love, and my god now I'm saying it, this sounds awful, that I've never thought of Annie"

"Morgan don't have a panic attack just because you've not seen Annie in the stars... you had her in real life down on earth is that not more real" she asks.

I debate that, no, because a great love is dreamed up, manifested from your thoughts, desires and wants, and if I've got a great love they have most definitely been manifested from the stars.

"Can I ask Morg... who have you seen in the stars" she asks curiously. "You don't have to mention Willa because that's a given"

I nod to myself in agreement and take another sip of wine. "Of course Willa, my children, and I don't know... I feel like I just saw someone else up there but to be honest Lyd...I'm a bottle of wine down and my eyesight is not what it was. I think I should go to bed before I start seeing things that don't exist"

"Get to bed... you're on a slippery slope Morg"

"That I am... night Lydia I love you"

"I love you too... call me tomorrow" she asks, and she clicks off.

***
Seeing them in the stars

Game over!

***
A message at bedtime

A sign you are the last thing they thought of before they went to sleep, and a good indication you run deep in them as they do you.

L- I can't stop thinking about you.

Oh god. Receiving this message whilst I was drunk and under the influence whilst handling a cell phone... bad idea!! Drunk texting... terrible plan...

M- Ditto x Perseus x

L- Night then Andromeda x

I hold the phone and read her instant reply and I roll over hiding my face in my pillows on the bed "she knows the myths and the stars" I say in disbelief. She had no time to look that up.... Fuck.

Leah Mitchell... a sign in herself.