Instructions for Loving Someone Who Lives in Another Universe

Instructions for Loving Someone Who Lives in Another Universe

(with excerpts from The Dictionary of Forgotten Emotions)

Section I: Warnings Before Use

Loving someone across universes is not for the faint-hearted.

Read these instructions carefully before attempting.

Side effects may include:

Irregular heartbeat whenever their name is spoken.

Sudden obsession with the stars.

Sleepless nights, caused not by distance in miles, but by the impossible weight of light-years.

If at any point you feel your chest expand with both hope and grief simultaneously, do not panic. That is normal. In fact, there is a word for it.

Astralem: (n.) the ache of realizing someone is close enough to imagine, but too far to hold.

Section II: Assembly Required

Step 1. Build a telescope out of patience. You will need it to glimpse their silhouette across realities.

Step 2. Recalibrate your vocabulary. Ordinary words will fail here. “Miss” feels too small. “Love” feels too blunt.

Step 3. Memorize the laws of physics, then break them with metaphor. It’s the only way to meet them halfway.

Example:

Instead of saying, “I wish you were here,”

try: “The gravity between us makes my ribs bend like galaxies in collision.”

Step 4. Do not look for logic. Love between universes was never designed to be logical.

For reference, consult:

Velora: (n.) the dizziness of standing between certainty and impossibility, knowing you will leap anyway.

Section III: Troubleshooting

Problem 1: They don’t hear you.

Try whispering through dreams.

If that fails, write your longing on the backs of comets.

Problem 2: You forget the sound of their voice.

Replay it in the static between radio stations.

Sometimes the universe hides echoes in noise.

Problem 3: You begin to doubt they exist at all.

Look at your palms. Notice how your lines don’t match anyone else’s. That’s proof: uniqueness breeds connection.

Besides, doubt is part of the manual.

See also:

Nerithe: (n.) the hollow flutter in the chest when you realize a memory might be more invention than fact.

Section IV: Maintenance

Feed the bond daily. A steady diet of hope, imagination, and foolish devotion.

Dust the corners of your heart. Old fears will gather like cobwebs; sweep them away.

Practice resilience. Universes are wide. Love needs stamina to travel across them.

Tip: Write letters you’ll never send. Fold them into star-shaped paper, then let them go in the wind. The act itself is a kind of bridge.

See also:

Luthien: (n.) the warmth that lingers after writing something you’ll never show the person it was meant for.

Section V: Cautions

Do not attempt to measure time between universes. One day for you might be one century for them. Measurement leads only to despair.

Do not compare your love to others’. This is not dinner dates and movie tickets; it is constellations and parallel dreams.

Do not assume closure will ever come neatly.

See also:

Eclipsera: (n.) the sudden shadow that falls across your joy when you remember how temporary everything is.

Section VI: Optional Features

If you are lucky, your universes may briefly overlap — a dream, a glitch, a breath on the edge of waking. When this happens:

Do not hesitate. Step forward.

Kiss them like gravity is collapsing.

Memorize everything, even the color of the silence.

See also:

Orilume: (n.) the brightness that floods your chest when you meet someone who feels inevitable.

Section VII: End of Manual

You will notice there is no “off” switch.

That is intentional.

Love between universes does not end; it transforms.

Sometimes it becomes starlight.

Sometimes it becomes poetry.

Sometimes it becomes the ache you carry like a constellation on your back.

If this seems unbearable, remember:

You were not chosen because it was easy.

You were chosen because you were capable of impossible tenderness.

See also:

Solvaran: (n.) the quiet strength of carrying love that may never return in the form you gave it.

Final Note:

If you are reading this, it means you have already begun.

There is no undo.

Only forward.

So look up tonight.

Somewhere, in a universe tilted just slightly differently than yours,

someone is looking up too.

And if you listen closely,

you might hear them whisper your name through the static.