Q&A with David Levithan discussion

It occured to me that I can ask YOU questions as well as you asking me questions ... it is a chat, right? So I'd be really curious to hear your own definitions of words that have to do with love. Let's see what you've got!

This is kind of nerve-wracking. But here's my attempt:

Subjunctive, adj.

You confess that you don’t even remember when this became a habit, our ‘thing’. "It happened on a rainy day," I establish. We look out the window and roll our eyes at the gloomy weather. I don’t really remember when either. We were only a few fairytales old back then. Now isn’t a bad place to be. It’s why we still come here as strangers in love, ordering the same drinks and dreaming the rest- the moments that may or may not happen, the ones we imagine anyway.

EDIT: Just realized that I was meant to write about "words that have to do with love" and "subjunctive" is probably the most unromantic word. Although, I am a bit of a lit-nerd ...

This is really nervous-making, because me and John are huge fans of your book that you wrote with John Green. So here, we wrote this for you, it is very unromantic (maybe it's romantic to you?) I did odd and he did even:


Empathy, n.

i. it will never be easy, two careful smiling
sociopaths, locked in careful constant
movement, dancing around the issue of
'iloveyousomuchpleaselovemeback'
we'll work around it

II. I confess that, for a moment,
my ticking clockwork heart
stopped, grinding to a halt with
a terrible mechanical sound, as though
you had stolen a gear from it.

iii. it's not exactly a feeling
we know very well, too used to
stupid people with stupid
problems, loving and laughing and
hurting, and we thought we were
so much better than them

IV. My heart may be mechanical,
but yours I know was tossed aside
carelessly, long ago. It's almost
funny, how pathetic we've become,
too wrapped up in having someone else
who understands what it is to
be a monster.

v. it's not that we're lacking, i
want to say, even though i know that
that's how other people see it. it's
not that we lack empathy, it's that
we've freed ourselves from it

I just read the book you wrote with John Green and I love it! You're the coolest writers ever! :)

And my favorite line from the book, which totally captures the definition of love (for me) is this: "I don't want to fall. All I want to do is stand on solid ground." Love is standing on solid ground, not falling. :)