Page two hundred twenty-nine, twelfth one down the right side, below palpable and above paltry, in the section of P words: Palpitate.

Palpitate; verb, to throb, to pound with emotion or exertion, to quiver, to shake.

I read the word, my hand shaking violently as I set down the page. I have read two hundred and twenty-nine pages worth of the dictionary’s words and this is the only one that I can relate to at the moment. I can relate to this word because of you. Isn’t that funny? You’ve made me relate to a word you have probably never heard the meaning of before, and now never will. So I wanted to write this for you, to let you know what you have achieved. I am shaking, quivering at thoughts of you, and pounding with mixed emotions. Am I depressed, sad, or angry? I don’t know anymore, as hard as I may try. This is because of you and that’s why I’m writing this at all. H*ll, I can’t remember the last time I even read the dictionary after I met you. I remember the first time though, that’s for sure.


The first time I went through a dictionary willingly was in third grade. It was a seminar about ‘Knowledge Is Power’ and it was shared to my class by a man whose skin was a rich dark chocolate color and whose voice had a tinge of Jamaican in it. That day I had a bulging headache that pounded at either side of my head, throbbing within my inner ear.
When I am sad, or angry, or not feeling well, or feeling alone, I read. I read A LOT. I don’t think I did a lot of reading when you came along. And that, of course was after third grade, and before now.
When I turned ten I was diagnosed with acute OCD disorder. That meaning that I had a little bit of a ‘clean freak’ streak that I held onto for a while. If the carpet wasn’t clean of every little speck of dirt, I would sit there for hours to clean it. If a written word didn’t look perfect I would re-write it over and over again until it was. I was a perfectionist, until I met you. I lost my disorder in a way, by falling in love with some one so imperfect yet perfect for me like you.
Your smile wasn’t perfect. It was actually far from it. Your incisor tooth was originally turned sideways and the braces only made it look slightly better, slightly more normal. I thought that was hilarious, because it was like your teeth knew that you weren’t normal at all and agreed to characterize you correctly. Making it all the more correct, your eyes agreed too. Bright green shocking eyes made you stick out in a crowd. You weren’t perfect. You weren’t exactly special. You were mine though. And I loved you. I loved you so much!
I told you I had OCD when you came to meet my parents. They were nice and you shook their hands warmly with your crooked smile that I thought was gorgeous. Once they left you spoke.

“Your house is so neat.” You whispered, rubbing a finger along a spine of a book that I had put into place along with ones its size.
“Yeah.” I said, a little bit awkwardly because I didn’t know how to tell you I had a disorder. I had just gotten you and I didn’t want to scare you away, make you never come back. That’s when I started to get flustered, my mind getting over anxious and an anxiety clawing my brain and surging words through it. “I have OCD.” I said, the three words I was dreading sputtering out of my mouth like they were nothing.
“Well.” You whispered, standing by me as we moved toward pictures climbing the living room’s tan wall. Your fingers brushed against mine, making them curl at your touch. That was the first time we ever really made contact, even though we had been dating for officially a week. Your fingers brushed mine again and reassured me that the first time they did it wasn’t on accident. Then you plucked the black dictionary from its place on the shelf, and started flipping pages. You were searching for something and then you broke the silence. “Love; A very deep strong feeling of warmth or concern for some one. A feeling very unique and uncommon. Sometimes incorrect in certain circumstances.” He finishes the sentence with a sigh. “Unique and uncommon, like you.” He whispered this like a secret, as if only for my ears to hear.
“Yep, uniquely strange.” I said and you laughed, louder then the whispers you had spoken before. Your laugh made me feel warm, happy even. I had felt almost everything but happy before, and it was something that I wished I had felt sooner. You put the dictionary back, and placed your hand near mine once again. Finally, your fingers curled around mine and you held my hand. Brushing your thumb along the base of mine, you turned to face me, and then took my other hand.
“I would rather be uniquely strange then strange by itself.” You whispered and I smiled. For the first time in a long while I smiled!

That’s when I fell in love with you. Not with your words, but by your touch, by the promise of some one so uniquely imperfect like you to rub your thumb long my hand. Then, lifting my chin so that you could see my eyes, you kissed me.

It has been ten years since then, making us twenty-five. Wait, no making ME twenty-five. Making you twenty-six, that is if you didn’t leave me. You left me only a month ago. I guess God needed an angel as imperfectly perfect as you. It just so happened to be a night that I finally went out of order that killed you.

“Please, take me outside.” I said, my fingers running along the window in a frantic rhythm. I wanted to prove to you that I could change, that I could be able to move out of my apartment to live with you. Rain splattered on the window and I finally lifted it, the smell of wet asphalt from below filling the room. I sucked it in and you smiled. Was there something different in my eyes? Because you looked at me as if I had changed, something deep down inside me altered, and rearranged.
You ended up taking me outside, and we went in the rain. Rain spread over our bodies, chilling us to the bone. I had one more jacket then you, so I was less effect, but that didn’t stop you from staying out there with me. It didn’t stop you from smiling at my sudden urge to do something that required me to not think of reasoning.
For hours we danced and you held my hand, people looked at us as if we were crazy. We stayed out there until we were soaked clean through, water leaking into our pores and making us cold. Then, for the last time, you kissed me.
Hypothermia caught up to you in your sleep. The chill ran cold through your veins, and even though you promised it was just a slight cold, I knew I wouldn’t see you after that night.
It was my fault you had died. I had always been in order, always written words correctly and organized according to reason. I had spoken with proper grammar and always used common sense. I thought I did everything perfectly. But the one time I did something different, something exciting, it killed you. I killed you. So I do something I haven’t done since before I met you, I read the dictionary. It is in order. It is correct. It isn’t love.

I shake at the thoughts of you. I quiver at the warmth I swear I can still feel from when your hand was stroking my jaw ever so slightly when you kissed me the first time. I pound with emotion as I feel the chill of rain cover me as I sit on the pavement thinking about you, dictionary still in hand. I palpitate.