Kate Bornstein and Barbara Carrellas
Kate: Hey Barbara, Out magazine wants us to write love letters to each other, to go with the photos they're taking.
Barbara: Well, your favorite bit from the Tao Te Ching says that the greatest love seems indifferent, so here we go: I love you. Done.
Kate: Aw hun, we gotta do more than that.
Barbara: Huh. How's this? Of course it's delightful that our 21-year relationship feeds, nourishes, and delights us. It's even more magical and meaningful when it can be of nourishing and delightful service to others.
Kate: Yeah, like that. And I love you with the kind of fullness that I love our cats and dogs.
Barbara: Me, I love to travel with you, you're a wonderful travel companion, and that's become a metaphor for who we are as a couple. We travel.
Kate: Bubu, I wanna love everyone the way I love you.
Barbara: What a wonderful world that would be.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Hillery Sklar and Francisca Silva
Hillery Sklar: I hope to get to tell our love story forever; how we met and got married one day shy of three months later. A leap of faith. Trusting the magic that was too big to ignore. I will always be so proud of how courageous we were then. I am so madly in love with you now. I know this couldn't have worked out any other way. I love living this life with you. Thank you for the sex.
Francisca Silva: She is the woman I was looking for all my life, and I found her, all the way across the world. She was waiting for me. I have learned with her what a grown-up relationship is and means. I have learned the beauty of sex, of laughter, and of deeply caring for each other in a very healthy way. She makes me always want to be my best, for myself, and for her. For everyone.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Grace Naw and Coco Layne
Grace Naw: Our love has many birthdays and I am blessed to celebrate every one with you over dim sum. I'm grateful to have a friend like you who embraces change and transformation with humility, adventure, and laughter. Love you, dokdok.
Coco Layne: It feels like we're just lucky stars flying across the sky, expanding and illuminating the paths we are each meant to explore. I hope those paths always lead us to eat together. Did you know you talked about carrot juice three times today? I am getting hungry writing this and can't wait for the next time I am lucky to sit across from you and eat off the same plate. I love you, bok!
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Dominique Imani and Pauli Cakes
Dominique Imani: Pauli, you really taught me how to live my femme love fantasy. I never thought I'd miss someone like I miss you when we're an hour train ride from each other. I want to rebuild the world with you. I want to raise queer babies and plants and shape change. You lil' alien gremlin club angel. You bright goddess cake.
Pauli Cakes: Our connection illuminated my soul before our lips even touched for the first time. You are my sweet honey angel, my true peace of mind. I'll never forget the haze of our love-induced ecstasy in Berlin lying in your bathtub, poppers in hand, warm water running. I knew our love would last forever from that moment. Our love is radical, our love is gratifying, our love breaks boundaries, and I thank the universe every day that our stars have aligned.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Lorelei Black and S.E.A.
Lorelei Black: The question is always where to start. Well, let me start simply. I love you, and thank you. Thank you for loving all the versions of myself I'm constantly uncovering. Thank you for leaving room for all that is to come. While I know so little in this life is promised, I hope to meet it all while holding your hand in mine.
S.E.A: You're so beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. Yet that's not the word I would use to describe you. That word is brave. Your bravery has allowed your gentle soul to navigate this crazy world with grace and strength and kindness. Bravery brought you to me and has kept you here, holding all the space, seeing all that is usually hidden, compassionately standing in your truth even when you wanted to run.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Sessa Cookie Mueller and Mi Leggett
Sessa Cookie Mueller: The outward beauty of your sleeping face and the inner beauty that palpably radiates out of you tells my heart and mind that I am firmly, securely in the presence of the person who has made me happier than I could have ever imagined possible, who helps me understand and love myself, you, and us more each day. You make every single day something to seize and cherish, and you make the future unshakably bright.
MI Leggett: You make me feel like a peeled tangerine: opened up and juicy and nourished. Every day, my love for you is the most delicious thing I've ever had. Although we initially gravitated towards each other because of our exteriors, no one had ever understood my interior so fully and grasped the connection between my interior and exterior so completely.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Sara Elise and Amber Drew
Sara Elise: Our love teaches me how to live outside of ego. It teaches me patience and discernment. It teaches me how to learn each version of myself. And it's teaching me to choose indulging only in the "me's" that are healthiest. You thrive and we thrive when I am my best. And this, beloved, is an equation that sets us up for eternities of mutual growth, support, and empowerment.
Amber Drew: Sara Elise, I have chosen you as my person, the being with whom I want to grow, learn, and explore. Thank you for encouraging me to be my best self by being your best and truest self. And even when it is a stretch, uncomfortable, and draining, thank you for encouraging us to do and be better--for ourselves and for each other.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Olivia Scott and Lily Olsen
Olivia Scott: Dear Lily, I didn't know that respect was a feeling in my gut that could sing like a chorus until I looked at you dancing for the first time. I didn't know one person could shake me awake when my hope gave the wheel to a sleeping driver. You are the glue that sticks the mornings to night to morning again, and again. I love you, DLE.
Lily Olsen: When I first met you, you were admiring a small, cut-glass cup at a bar. Feeling flirtatious, I suggested you slip it into your bag. Petty thievery is so out of my character, but I had a big crush on you and was feeling impulsive. Not an hour later, that cup left the bar snug in my jacket pocket. Shortly thereafter, you asked me out on our first date. That cup now sits on a fireplace mantel that we share in our apartment as if to remind us, "Love makes you do stupid things."
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
Viviana Evans and Hana Holquist
Viviana Evans: Despite what you think, I love your weird tiny loft bed, bound to collapse any day now, because it lets me lie with you. Recently, I've been noticing an increasing amount of things I love are less about the "what" and more about the "who." Because since I met you, doughnuts got sweeter, raccoons got cuter, and how my lipstick looks got a lot less relevant.
Hana Holquist: I knew I liked you from your opening line about our shared lack of eyebrows, and I knew I liked you when we accidentally met for the first time in full drag at a club. I'm so proud of how hard you work and how driven you are. I know you'll make a positive impact and difference by being who you are and doing what you do. In our time together, you've certainly made an impact and difference in my life.
Photographed By Lia Clay
Hair And Makeup By Nina Soriano For Marc Jacobs Beauty
Set Design By Marcs Goldberg
Photo Assistant: Cloe Young
