Accompanying Tweets to The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan: D

Here I am again with another installment! Sorry if it's late, I was so busy I didn't realize I haven't posted these. Enjoy!

dabble, v.: Like the ukulele you never learned to play or the spoon collection that only lasted two spoons, am I destined to dust?

daft, adj.: Is it foolish to love words for foolishness, to think you can make a bad decision feel lighter by calling it daft?

dagger, n.: The thought that you might not love me at all.

daily, adj.: The minimum frequency at which I question our relationship; also, the minimum frequency at which I find it worth it.

dalliance, n.: There is nothing sophisticated about having an affair, no matter how you may dress it up in drama.

dam, n.: This is what doubt feels like – you are a heavy object trying to hold back the weight of water, knowing it wins in the end.

damage, n.: Every time you break up, a piece of you falls away, never to return, even if your lover does.

damsel, n.: It’s gotten to the point that you can’t think of her without also thinking of distress.

dance, v.: To turn your body into music.

dandelion, n.: My wish when I blow things away is often for them to come back.

danger, n.: I want to peel back the warning labels and find you underneath.

dangle, v.: Let magpies have their foil and cats have their tinsel; for me, nothing shines more than promise, as you bounce it up and down.

dapper, adj.: A sophisticated handsomeness that suggests a pocket square and a cravat.

dapple, v.: Before you wake up, before a word is said, I look at you in the light from between the shades, and you shimmer.

dare, v.: Rearrange the letters, and you will find “read”–to dare is to decode, to discover what the story was meant to be, and make it so.

daresay, v.: I like this qualifier, because while some words can merely be said, there are others that need to be daresaid.

dark, adj.: I am not afraid of the dark as much as I am afraid of my own helplessness within it.

darling, adj.: The lover bakes a pie, treating the recipe like grail, then abandoning scripture and improvising before your eyes.

dashed, adj.: When phrases are tentative – words piecemeal – uncertain – irresolute – the ship of your spirits encounters rocks.

dastardly, adv.: No mustache to twirl, but you can’t contain the evil gleam, the relish you take when things that are not yours fall apart.

data, n.: Every time we met, I would collect facts and try to piece them in the right place, a map of your country assembled town by town.

date, n.: In my experience, if you have to ask if it is one, then it isn’t one.

dateable, adj.: Only the geologist with the comforts of carbon testing has a semi-accurate measure of this.

dawn, v.: When revelations dawn, there may be light, but isn’t necessarily warmth.

day, n.: A minor increment of your life that can contain emotional immensity.

daze, n.: The more you drink, the more I become a supporting character in your life, barely distinguishable from the rest of the scenery.

dazzle, v.: Some relationships are about glitter, but ours hews to the dazzle of the unexpected, the horizon that bursts into sunflowers.

deadline, n.: An overstated word. Whenever I draw this line for you, there’s always an afterlife.

deadweight, n.: You try to cut my exes free and throw them overboard, but we both find they’re secured by multiple ropes.

deafening, adj.: It is not our silence that is deafening, but all the words underneath it, yelled in our heads.

dealbreaker, n.: You passed the test when you had books on your shelves, and had read many of them.

dear, adj.: The tenderness with which I think of you, and how you help make my world closer to the right shape.

death, n.: We define love by the heart, and we define death by its stopping.

debacle, n.: A disaster too big to control; the breaking point.

debased, adj.: I am livid when ungodly things are attributed to God and unloving things are attributed to love.

debate, n.: An attempt to confine argument within rules. Not applicable to relationships.

debauchery, n.: Every computer now has a red light district. The only difference is whether you window shop or actually step inside.

debrief, v.: In this particular situation, the more proper word would be deboxer.

debt, n.: The list on the refrigerator is the superficial accounting. What we owe does much deeper, and will never be fully repaid.

debut, v.: I was more nervous about your friends liking me; I think you were more nervous about liking my friends.

decadent, adj.: Jarlsberg.

deceit, n.: The lies that aren't well intentioned, that we conjure because we think we can get away with them.

decency, n.: This is what angers and upsets me the most, when you treat me worse than you should treat any human being.

decide, v.: This is what we do – we push each other to the choice of whether or not to stay. And when it’s going well, it’s unquestioned.

declaration, n.: I don’t want the pursuit of happiness. I want happiness.

decline, v.: I used to think if I declined it would lead to our decline, but now I know that no is an essential caesura in keeping peace.

deconstruct, v.: To attempt to pare something down to its elements, only to create a much bigger mess than existed before.

decoy, n.: There are times I wonder if you were created to look lifelike, until I foolishly got close enough to find you were made of wood.

dedication, n.: Without you I’d be talking alone in a closed room, so of course these words are for you.

deduction, n.: The noun form of both deduce and deduct – a sign that the things you figure out will be counted against someone?

deep, adj.: Love is not a swimming pool, gently sloped and clearly marked. When you step in and keep going, you must know how to swim far.

deface, v.: You can’t pass a WET PAINT sign without ripping off the T. It’s gotten to the point that I do it when you’re not there.

defeat, v.: Name the enemy and I will help you fight it. You just need to name it to me.

defensive, adj.: I don’t want you to notice that I’m wrong, so I release some unworthy noise to distract you.

defiance, n.: You draw me the road map of all your failed relationships, and instead of trying to navigate it, I set a match to its edge.

deficient, adj.: It is like one of Zeus’s cruel tricks, that I never feel I measure up to myself.

definition, n.: My body is full of words but I will never be able to arrange them into a definition. I am coming to accept this.

deflect, v.: “Where were you?” I ask, and you say, “Where wasn’t I?” And I think the answer’s obvious: Here.

deftly, adv.: You come home and find my folded on the couch, wrapped in a bad day, so you unwrap me and leave me to unfold myself.

defuse, v.: “There is something about my mother,” you warned me, “that makes people want to throw water on her.”

degrading, adj.: Only half your vomit makes it into the bowl. Cleaning it is bad, but the way you don’t remember it in the morning is worse.

degree, n.: I agree that love is like temperature–too hot and too cold are unbearable, so you dial yourselves to the most comfortable place.

dejected, adj.: When you see life through midnight-colored glasses at any time of day.

delay, v.: The thwarting of instant gratification; or, a pause to figure things out.

delegate, n.: I have you call for the pizza or ask the guard for directions, because you’re not intimidated by strangers and I still am.

delegitimize, v.: Anytime you accuse as an echo (“you were flirting too!”; “I’m not the only one who”) you give your words a bastard birth.

deleted, adj.: This should be the new word for “dumped,” since you’re no longer taken out with the trash, but backspaced out of existence.

deliberate, adj./v.: As an adjective, so premeditated, but as a verb, still indecisive. This is how we make each other feel.

delicate, adj.: Love makes you breakable, but that’s okay.

delight, n.: We have to remember to stop and savor the slower pleasures in our high-speed lives, or else we’ll lose them completely.

delineate, v.: I don’t mind losing myself with you every now and then. I just need to get myself back, still separate from you.

delinquent, n.: There’s still a little shoplifter in you, taking things you can afford, just for the thrill of getting away with it.

deliverance, n.: If I didn’t think you were going to take me to a better place, I wouldn’t fall into your arms.

delude, v.: You argue that people can fundamentally change, and I say I agree, if you strike the word fundamentally.

demand, n.: The sole requirement for any interaction is an underlying kindness, a recognition of mutual humanity.

demeanor, n.: The thing you lack when you demean me, or anyone else.

demilune, n.: The slow, long pause when you stare at the lover and wonder whether he or she waxes or wanes.

democracy, n.: In order to work, relationships must be one person, one vote.

demolish, v.: Why are there so many more synonyms for destruction than creation? What is the dictionary trying to say?

demon, n.: The advisory being in my head who sees everything wrong, and in seeing everything wrong, makes everything wrong.

demonstrate, v.: Show don’t tell is actually better advice for love than it is for writing.

demote, v.: We will never get to the truth if we don’t stop letting professional assholes hold positions of esteem.

demythologize, v.: Not every story needs to have a villain. Too often we create them, just to feel our lives have a plot.

den, n.: Even though we live in a one-bedroom apartment, I want it to feel like a warren, a cabin, a fort made of sheets.

denature, v.: I try to steer you out of the bar, but you pull away, shout at me, "No! This is who I am."

dendrite, n.: We need to retreat from words. We need stretches where we are only sensation, only impulse, minutely receptive.

denial, n.: When you choose to know less, even when you know better.

denouement, n.: You are going to have to write your own dialogue for this one.

density, n.: It was not depth, but density that made me know I loved you – the thoughts so close together, the empty space banished.

dentrifice, n.: You said it was silly for us to buy two kinds of toothpaste, so we swapped for a week, to see who cared the most.

denude, v.: I like it more when you undress me, because then it feels like it’s mutual, not just my own desire to lay us bare.

deontological, adj.: The responsibility should come from the connection; the connection should not come from the responsibility.

depart, v.: Leave is what you do because of someone else; depart is what you do purely on your own.

depend, v.: To leave a part of yourself in someone else, and trust them to be there when you need it.

depleted, adj.: There is a difference between feeling empty and feeling emptied. There is loss from the losing, not the not having.

deployment, n.: I use words, because I can magically conjure them out of nothing.

deposit, v.: You get five cents of knowledge back for every date you throw in the recycle bin.

depth, n.: I am fathomless, and you are fathomless. We will never touch the bottom of our selves.

derail v.: We are not trains. It’s okay if we fall off the tracks.

derelict, adj.: Even the things we’ve abandoned still stand inside us, ramshackle rot of bad decisions, and the better decisions to move on.

derision, n.: The things you criticize most vehemently are usually the things you fear or hate within yourself.

desacralize, v.: God is not in the details; God is the details, and the randomness that creates what we see as us.

descant, n.: Sometimes I worry that I have talked this relationship to death, and that only silent understanding can revive it.

descend, v.: It is not a freefall into sadness, but a staircase.

describe, v.: Friends will never understand, because they can only go by what you tell them.

desensitized, adj.: Being in a relationship is like leaving a window open in summer – you get used to the noise in order to have the breeze.

desert, n.: You don’t drown in loneliness; you are stranded within it.

design, v.: Let’s never fit into any particular shape. Let’s make up our own.

desirable, adj.: I want your appreciation, not your approval.

desire, v.: To want with the full intensity of your self, to a degree you cannot explain.

despair, n.: To be gripped by the feeling that nothing you ever do matters, that the world and everyone in it are unchangeable.

desperate, adj.: When you are willing to go against your better self’s cautions, because if you don’t, you feel all will be lost.

despite, prep.: Such a valuable preposition, to teach us to transcend the bad things that come with the good, and likewise.

dessert, n.: The cherry isn’t always on top.

destabilize, v.: If you do not appreciate love, if you do not treat it with care, then it owes you no debt.

destination, n.: For a hundred different reasons, you are the place I want to be.

destiny, n.: I do not believe we are the written; I believe we are the writers.

destitute, adj.: It is not your poverty of language but your poverty of sympathy that stuns me when you stoop to your lows.

detail, n.: These moments I collect add up to the way you live your life. Every small gesture links to something larger.

detectable, adj.: We are all transparent, when seen in the right light, from the right angle.

detective, n.: Let my browser keep its history to itself.

détente, n.: When we’re too tired to tether ourselves to the fight, so we let it leave the room.

deterrent, n.: You think there’s no traffic coming, so you run through my stop signs. But you can’t always see what’s around my corners.

detour, n.: Life does not have a single path. It has many paths and we move from one to the next, most of the time not even realizing it.

detox, v.: Two weeks is your record.

detritus, n.: We cast off our former lives, but they still float somewhere, waiting for the tide to pull them back in.

devalue, v.: Don't say you love me when you don’t know what you’re saying; autopilot makes me wonder why we need a pilot at all.

develop, v.: You stare in the dark room, waiting to see if the negatives can be transformed into a perfect image.

deviate, v.: You force me to go against my nature, and as a result I often find my better nature.

devilry, n.: I can convince myself your words are a sophisticated sadism; romance is the devil’s science project, and he’s getting an A.

devoid, adj.: Those moments I am incapable, it is not that I am filled with the capacity to do something else. Recognize me as hollow.

devolve, v.: The bad days feel like a rerun of other bad days; there is nothing interesting in the ways we go wrong.

devotion, n.: When the storm comes, whatever storm, I will run inside of it to save you.

devour, v.: At the height of our desire I want to consume you and be consumed by you.

dewfall, n.: Somehow the uneasiness of falling asleep is anointed with the certainty of waking up.

dexterity, n.: Holding on is as much a trick of the eye as the talent of the hand.

diabolical, adj.: To deny someone else love simply to preserve your own.

diachronic, adj.: The tentative becomes the tender; the questions become the answers.

diadem, n.: You wear nothing so well as sunlight. Stand there. Right there.

diagnose, v.: My friends read the symptoms in my sentences, took the pulse of my tone, as I told them all about you.

diagonal, adj.: Some of your sleeping habits needed to be altered.

diagrammatic, adj.: I want to achieve a Venn state, an equilibrium between the circles and the crossing.

dial, v.: It wasn’t enough to have your number. After the second date, I put your name into my phone, not caring if I was going too fast.

dialectic, n.: We investigate the truth with words, and hide it with words about the investigation.

dialogue, n.: How sweet the sound of our ratatatat, how comfortable the rhythm of our zingzingzing.

diametric, adj.: The space between our differences is so much smaller than the space between the things we share.

diamond, n.: Of course the roughness comes with it, the constant, bearable flaws of the clearest, hardest things you love.

diarist, n.: Even though I abandoned the notebooks after high school, all my inner thoughts remain handwritten.

diarrheic, adj.: When any diatribe reaches its fifth minute, it’s best to staunch the flow of words.

diaspora, n.: We moved to the city and immediately sought to rebuild our home out of the friends we were making.

dicey, adj.: I thought my odds of finding a good relationship were the same as rolling double lucky 7s. You were my 1 in 144 chance.

dichotomy, n.: The older you get, the more the opposites blur, and you see love in the hate, and spirit in the science.

dickering, n.: All the petty point-outs that come when one or both lovers are in a bad mood.

dickwad, n.: This is actually in the dictionary: "ORIGIN 1980s: from ‘dick’ in the sense of ‘penis’ + wad."

dictate, v.: Say whatever orders you’d like; I am not writing them down.

diction, n.: I have to believe we are made of the words we choose.

didactic, adj.: It’s hard to approach this word without thinking that it is going to be a chore.

die, v.: We are too young for this to be a part of our vocabulary. I cannot think of you in terms of this.

diet, n.: The best thing is to fall in love with someone who wouldn’t really notice the difference anyway.

difference, n.: The result when one thing is subtracted from another. A difference does not have to be a wedge; it can be a missing piece.

difficult, adj.: I can’t make you love me if you don’t.

diffuse, adj.: Sometimes I scatter like rubble and sometimes I scatter like light.

digestif, n.: A little lie every now and then is useful for helping the truth go down.

digital, adj.: If I can choose between your fingers on the keys and your fingers on my skin, you know what the choice will be.

digitized, adj.: Lost in the electric translation, a replication where a little of the DNA falls away.

dignity, n.: When I say the wrong things with the right heart, let the words stand, then correct me later so I can take them down myself.

digress, v.: I think in branches, I think in loops, I think in ellipses, I think in steps, I think in trajectories that fall to earth.

dilapidate, v.: You can’t take the relationship for granted. There is always something that needs attention, maybe repair.

dilettante, n.: I’m haunted by the idea that my belief in love is hollow, that I spend so much time on it, but I’m just playing along.

dilly-dally, v.: Let’s polka-dot the time with colorful, playful idleness, a hourless space before we head out into the day.

dilute, v.: The word “sorry” loses a piece of its power every time you have to use it.

diluvial, adj.: A rush of affection that leaves you completely at sea; I’ve lost my horizons, and you are the only boat.

dim, adj.: In that hour between the sky darkening and the lighting of our lamps, I search you out, just wanting to know you’re there.

dimension, n.: I wanted it to be real, and I knew that for it to be real, it had to have depth, and reach into the harder places.

diminish, v.: I say I’ve had a bad day, and because you’ve had a bad day, you say, “We all have bad days,” and that doesn’t help.

diminuendo, n.: The sudden shift to slowness, the gift of gentleness when I need you to be a shelter from the noise.

dimple, n.: When you smile with your whole body.

din, n.: The more I take in, the more I stare at screens, blink up words, the closer I feel I am becoming static. Save me.

dinner, n.: The first night you didn’t make it home in time, I just sat there staring at both plates, no longer excited to eat.

dinosaur, n.: The minute someone younger than you has no knowledge of your favorite band from high school – you will feel Paleolithic.

diorama, n.: Freeze the frame and see us in the shoebox. This way you can notice me reaching for you, even if you're turned away.

diplomatic, adj.: Of course I want you to make the stuffing this year.

diptych, n.: On the uneasy evenings of near silent dinners, this is how we sit, in our separate frames, but still hinged together.

direct, adj.: You shoot your words straight at me, while I tend to aim for the ricochet. Your way is better, but I can’t always do it.

dirt, n.: Whenever you try to get the dirt on someone, do not be surprised when all that you’re left with is dirt.

disadvantage, n.: If you retreat into the recesses of your own thoughts, I find it harder to visit you with thoughts of my own.

disambiguate, v.: Tell me the truth in no uncertain terms. Do you love me?

disappear, v.: Such is the salve of love, that it makes your isolation vanish. It is still there, but rendered invisible to your eye.

disappoint, v.: To prove to be less worthy than you should be, or want to be.

disarming, adj.: Some days my life is a series of bombs waiting to go off, and you manage to charm them into defusing.

disarray, n.: Our apartment looks like the combined topography of our minds – plenty of paper clutter, but nothing that would grow mold.

disastrous, adj.: My father doesn’t like Polish jokes. He just doesn’t.

disavow, v.: “It’s not like we’re married!” you yell at me. As if we haven’t made vows already, as if I cannot hold you to them.

disbelief, n.: I swore this kind of love wouldn’t happen to me, but look: You are my Yeti, my Roswell, my seven-leaf clover.

discarded, adj.: As a kid, I always collected torn wrapping paper, empty cereal boxes, looking to use things after their use was through.

discipline, n.: "People have a problem," you say, "if they are aspiring to grayness."

disclaimer, n.: By date five, I'd given you the warnings about my own instability, my own unsuitability, and there was still a sixth date.

disco, n./v..: My dance floor drunkard, you don’t just turn the beat around, you toss it up in the air, to catch with your hips.

discombobulated, adj.: One of those first nights you slept over, I woke up and thought you were a burglar, and jumped out of the bed.

disconnect, v.: I worry that if we unplug our lives from one another, we’ll lose all power and I will shut down.

discontinent, n.: When you feel your sadness is a vast place with its own topography, separate from all other land masses.

discourage, v.: When my friends told me not to go so fast, I felt they were trying to rob me of my courage, and held to it tighter.

discovery, n.: could never answer when people asked me, big picture, what I wanted. It was a shock to realize I wanted to be with you.

discreet, adj.: We don’t kiss or cuddle with the businessman sitting right beside you, but we do hold hands through takeoff and landing.

discuss, v.: It’s not enough to send the words at each other sideways. We must put them in a position to see and respond to one another.

disdainful, adj.: I don’t know which is worse: If your mother truly forgets my name, or if she pretends that she does.

disembark, v.: Entering a relationship means you must finally find a way to exit the last one, far enough to roll the entrance ramp away.

disgrace, n.: When you tell me what you’ve done, it feels like you’ve dismembered all the grace we’ve cultivated over time.

dishonest, adj.: My heart never lies to me, but sometimes it is just plain wrong.

disingenuous, adj.: My thoughts are screaming out to you and you pretend I left the TV on in the other room.

dismay, n.: The look on your face when we woke up in the cabin and I told you it would be at least a fifteen minute drive for coffee.

disobedient, adj.: You say it doesn’t count as walking on the grass if we hold hands and run.

disorder, n.: Just because my love for you falls out of sequence doesn’t mean it falls into chaos.

disown, v.: There are times I hate how much I love you, because it makes me weak.

disperse, v.: I’ve never been able to hold my love for long; as soon as I feel it, it wants out.

dispirited, adj.: The moment when you feel all your inner cheerleaders putting down their pompoms and walking off the field.

displace, v.: If you throw your silence into my anger, it only makes the anger rise higher.

display, n.: The face of the clock, the kiss on the street, the bravado of opening the door, the laugh that’s a little too loud on purpose.

disposable, adj.: A sure sign of love is when things you’d ordinarily discard – ticket stubs, Post-it handwriting – endure for their echoes.

disprovable, adj.: “This is how I feel,” you insist.

disputatious, adj.: “No, it’s not,” I counter. “Not really.”

disregard, n.: Not so much casual as determined, you cultivate your blind spots.

disremember, v.: We construct stories out of memories that are stories already; the version that sticks is rarely the version that played.

disrepair, n.: A relationship is like any piece of machinery. Parts wear down, wear out. Pay attention and replace them.

dissect, v.: “Don’t try to take it all apart and examine it,” you tell me. “Because if you do, that means it’s already dead.”

dissipate, v.: Our heartbeats slow, our bodies cool. We nestle into the sheets, spread into sleep.

dissociate, v.: When I am in a bad place, dragging you into it, I think, “Who is this person, doing these things?”

dissonance, n.: Sometimes there are seventeen songs playing at the same time in my head, and you are only singing three of them.

distance, n.: I lie awake in bed, waiting for your arm to glance once more against mine, to rest there.

distant, adj.: Sometimes we need to retreat inside ourselves, use the limitless space our mind provides to stretch away from each other.

distillation, n: My time with you is better than my time with anyone else,including myself.

distinct, adj.: When your voice appears in the room, I don’t have to rush to it; I just feel a little more present, knowing it’s there.

distortion, n.: Our defensiveness can sometimes impose an evasive autocorrect over the words we know we need to be saying.

distraction, n.: “I just love shiny things,” you told me on that fourth date. “Especially if they’re filled with alcohol.”

disturb, v.: I want this word to provide its opposite, because most of the time, you are turbing me when you think you’re not.

dither, v.: I do take it less personally when you’re debating whether you want to be in a relationship, not whether to be in one with me.

ditsy, adj.: You claim to be victim of blonder permutations, but you’d lose your keys while kissing the wrong person even if you were bald.

ditto, n.: The state of ditto is when you absolve yourself of all decision-making, and just want your lover to be the one to decide.

ditty, n.: You ask me to think of us in terms of a country song title, and I say, “Your Love Is The Boulder That Stopped My Tractor Cold”

diurnal, adj.: I am the waking one, the daylight riser, the body that tiptoes through the morning motions, the periphery to your sleep.

diva, n.: “Take the peanuts out. Seriously, take them out,” I command, and it takes me a good minute before I find it funny, too.

dive, n.: Sometimes you have to take the water’s word that it’s deep enough to take you.

diversion, n.: The key to meandering is to know the path you’re veering from, to know that even as your rewrite it, you still need a path.

divination, n.: I draw the wonder by acknowledging it.

divorce, n.: To find love, you must separate yourself from everyone else’s separations, even the ones that have defined your life.

divulge, v.: Don’t be deceived. While I inevitably blurt out the surface, I keep the depths encrypted.

dizzy, adj.: Wrists crossed, hands held, we centrifuge at the side of the dance floor, giddy until we overdo it.

doable, adj.: A hookup is the reduction of the desirable to the doable.

document, v.: I write it all down to show you I love you, and to show you that love is complicated.

doddering, adj.: You drink to feel younger, but then get to the point that you’re octogenarian in your abilities, and I become your nurse.

dodge, v.: The time is not right for the answer, so I avoid the question rather than lie.

dog-ear, v.: I trace the passages that are interesting to you, on the pages you’ve left lightly marked, like a trail.

dogma, n.: Your beliefs do not have to be my beliefs, but your beliefs have to allow my beliefs.

dolt, n.: It was remarkably stupid to call you remarkably stupid.

domestic, adj.: It’s not seamless, the way we come together. But I like to see the seams, and the way we sew them with our unspoken faith.

dominant, adj.: What you want always matters more to me than what I want, and I don’t think it’s the same for you.

donate, v.: I prefer to think of it simply as giving, because that feels more equal.

donut, n.: It is not precisely the way to my heart – I’m not that easy – but, damn, it makes me happy.

doodle, v.: I have more fun when it’s freeform.

doom, n.: Any conversation can find its own precipice, but why push it there? Why allow yourself to be seduced by the worse unknown?

door, n.: We slam, we swing, we push, we pull, we click shut, we lock, we unlock, we close, we leave ourselves open.

doormat, n.: It seems wrong to walk all over a WELCOME, which is why I overruled you and opted for the stripes.

doozy, n.: “I’m a Virgin,” you told me over drinks that third date. Then you paused before adding, “Insofar as I was born in Virginia.”

dope, n.: There is nothing quite so hard to kick as acting foolishly.

dork, n.: You: “There has never been a superhero who’s gotten his or her superpowers from a boyfriend.” Me: “What about Robin?”

dormant, adj.: I can put the ghosts to rest, but I am always worried that I’ll wake them.

doubt, n.: The inability to be satisfied with the appearance of truth.

doubtless, adj.: If there’s such a thing, I’ve never been there.

doughnut, n.: See donut

dovetail, v.: We say this is coming together, but isn’t it also flying away?

down, adj.: At some point, this became the opposite of happy instead of the opposite of up.

downburst, n.: When it becomes too torrential, you must throw the umbrella aside and embrace the force of the rain.

downcast, adj.: I wake up in the sallow shallows, and need something – music, sunlight, you – to pull me out.

downfall, n.: Samson plays, and I look at the flowers you stole for me.

doze, v.: When a bull does this, it’s powerful. When you do it, all the power drains, and all I am left with is your breathing.

drab, adj.: Fluorescent confinement; the monotonous deluge of email; the bland carpet of other people’s droning.

draft, n.: That chill is your own incompleteness; no matter how final you feel, the wind will always get through

drag, v.: Although it may seem like I resent it, sometimes I need you to drag me when I drag.

drama, n.: This word has become overdramatic in its use, like how when people talk about enough, we become an exaggeration of ourselves.

drawl, v.: Sometimes your vowels are sofas and other times they’re beds.

dread, v.: It is not so much the end as the emptiness after the end that I fear.

dream, n.: A place where the consequences aren't real

dreamt, v.: It’s a much more complicated word in the past tense.

dredge, v.: I am always searching for the people you never talk about, the ones I only glimpse briefly in your tales of the wreckage.

dregs, n.: When the relationship is nearly over, it still tastes like a relationship, but something has soured.

drift, v.: I love you because you’ve grown used to the way my mind can leave you, the wayward pause I can bring to any conversation.

drinker, n.: “I’m not an alcoholic,” you argue. “I’m a drinker.”

drip, n.: How is it that I can hear things like this – the incessant minor noise – while you sleep soundly?

drive, v.: When you live in the city, this verb becomes synonymous with escape.

driven, adj.: Your ambitions take the wheel.

drollery, n.: As you drink, you become the proud mockingbird, flying in rings around your self-perceived wit.

drone, v.: As you drink, you reduce me to a hummingbird, buzzing ineffectually.

drop, v.: It’s that rollercoaster sensation; even as you fall, something inside of you still must rise.

dross, n.: When writing, you must cut through the dross and the gloss and the moss in order to get to the truth, which is so often loss.

drown, v.: When the deep and dangerous world threatens to sink us, we must drawn in the love in our lives to preserve us.

drowsily, adv.: Drunk on sleep for once, our kisses are murmurs and our murmurs are kisses.

druthers, n.: It’s not that I lost them; I fear I never had them. As they slid down the learning curve, I must have been distracted.

duality, n.: The words “you” and “me” sound so different for a reason, so that even when you feel similar, you know you’re not the same.

dubious, adj.: There is no achievement in having someone just for the sake of being able to say you're not alone.

ducklings, n.: “I only want children,” you joke, “if they will all line up neatly in a row whenever I say so.”

duel, n.: We each step ten paces, then turn and unleash our tongues.

duet, n: Islands in the stream -- that is in no way what we are.

dulcify, v.: On a base level, a lover should bring sweetness to your life.

dull, adj.: There is sensation underneath, but I can’t reach it.

dumb, adj.: What wordsmith decided to equate stupidity with an inability to speak? What did he fail to say to his lover?

dumbfounded, adj.: Like it’s a phenomenon, like you’ve been struck by an invisible lightning that’s robbed you of your sense.

dump, v.: The worst part isn’t the dropping, isn’t the being left. It’s the discovery that you were separable, after all.

duopoly, n.: Let’s become Vonnegut’s nation of two. Let’s control the majority of our lives together.

duplicity, n.: Two-timing will never work, because time rarely divides that easily.

durable, adj.: I can get you through the scary parts.

dusk, n.: As half light turns to quarter light, I feel something settle in myself, and have less of a need to call your name.

dust, n.: We layer our space with particles of our selves.. Every now and then we sweep them up, but more will fall.

dutiful, adj.: I never want you to be this.

dwindle, v.: As the dates progressed, the doubts began to dwindle, replaced by a dread that I would mess it up Then the dread dwindled.

dynamic, adj.: Duos are nothing if not this – ever-shifting, powered by the energy generated from the push and pull of close and far.

dyscalculia, n.: In any relationship, the true value of me + you can never be known, no matter how many times you try to parse the equation.

dysfunctional, adj.: Take comfort. Over time all things fail to function as they once did; the universe is by its nature dysfunctional.

dyslalia, n.: When you don’t listen, it has the effect of making me feel like I can’t speak.

dysphoria, n.: It is a good sign if you don’t know this word.