Love Poetry

Quinn: Well, this is my apartment.

Toby: Huh.

Quinn: It's all I could afford after my field studies. I know it's not much, but it felt good to be able to finally settle down after having been moving for so long. It was like I was a weary traveller finally returning to my-

Toby: You're beginning to ramble again.

Quinn: Oh! Sorry.

Toby [smiling]: It's alright. It's cute when you ramble.

[Quinn walks off to another room, while Toby picks a book off a shelf.]

Toby: Hey Quinn, what's this?

Quinn: What's... Oh.

Toby: "Quinn's Diary, 232 LE."

Quinn: Please, Toby, you can't read that.

Toby [smiling]: Why not?

Quinn: It's from when I was like, sixteen.

Toby: And?

[Toby flicks the diary open and quietly reads while Quinn stands anxiously. After a moment, Toby chuckles.]

Quinn: What is it?

Toby: Hold on, listen to this:
"Dear Diary,

It brings a pleasant smile upon my face,
and sends my heart up flying like a dove.
The thought of her, a feeling I can't place;
To think that this is how I'd fall in love."

Quinn: Stop.

Toby: "I want to meet her again for just the chance,
to speak my truth, confess what's on my heart.
I want to hold her hand without a glance,
to look her in the eyes and be entranced."

[Quinn is now visibly holding their head in their hands.]

Toby: "And sure I've said I've been in love before,
but those are nothing now; yes now, I see;
they fall away like that! For she is more.
I know she is the only one for me."

Quinn: Ca-

Toby: "And at once, I ask, like the race of men;
'will ever I be this in love again?'"

Quinn: Oh my gods.

Toby [sarcastically]: Damn, Quinn, I didn't know you were into women too.

Quinn: Please put the book back.

Toby: When are you gonna write me a love poem?

[Quinn groans. Toby begins flipping through the book.]

Quinn: Oh my gods. I invite you home to my apartment and this is how you treat me.

Toby [chuckling]: Huh. This one's from just three days later.

Quinn: Oh no.

Toby: "Dear Diary,

I met him only earlier today,
yet still I can't stop thinking of his face.
His jaw, his smile, the way he meets my gaze.
The thought, it leaves my heart to swing and sway.

I want to be with him forever more,
not just as friends but as something still more.
I want to ask him if he'd follow me,
as I take him to a hill nearby the sea."

[Toby begins to mockingly gesticulate as he continues to read.]

Toby: "And we'll dance with hand and hand beneath the breeze!
Just him and me swirling in ecstacy,
then quietly I'd give his wrist a squeeze,
and ask him if he'd want to marry me.

And when I ask I hold that in my heart,
He'll say 'We'll never have to be apart'."

Quinn: ...

Toby: My gods, these are so bad. Really, three days? I hope you aren't planning on moving on from me that quickly.

Quinn: I was sixteen.

Toby: And what are you now, twenty-one?

Quinn: Twenty.

[Toby raises his eyebrows and grins. Quinn says nothing. Toby looks back down and skims through the diary.]

Quinn: Are- Are they really that bad?

[Toby laughs and shuts the book.]

Quinn: I- I- I mean I thought-

Toby: It's alright, Quinn. I don't think any less of you for having written bad poetry when you were sixteen.

Quinn: I... Okay.

Toby: I'm just messing with you.

[Toby puts the book down.]

Toby: Hey. I love you.

Quinn: I love you too.

[They embrace for several seconds. Then Quinn leaves to the other room. Behind them, Toby picks the book back up.]

Toby: "Dear Diary,"

[Quinn runs back into the room.]

Quinn: OH MY GODS STOP.

Toby: "Oh how I wait until there comes a day,
where he would merely just give me a pass;
when he would finally get off my ass;
the stupid bloody teacher of that class."

Quinn: I don't even remember writing that one!

Toby: "I want to cave his face in with a club."

Quinn: Oh my gods.

Toby: "I know that that sounds harsh, but it is true.
I want to see his face, that once was smug,
crumple into dust just like a bug."

Quinn: When will he stop?

Toby: "As I walk by, he sits there at his desk,
and looks at me with that judgemental glare.
It fills my heart with spite that's so grotesque,
I can't help but hate his guts, I must confess.

[Quinn is silent.]

Toby: "So I ask when he'd stop being such an ass;
the stupid bloody teacher of that class."

[Toby smiles cheekily at Quinn.]

Quinn: Are you done?

[Toby chuckles and puts the book back on the shelf.]

Toby [smiling]: Yes, Quinn. I'm done.