Love Day is fast approaching; time to make all those romantic plans. Time to show your beloved how much you care. Time to recapture the romance. Time to—what? Surely you didn’t forget about Valentine’s Day. Or maybe you’re just out of ideas this year. Well, I have the perfect solution—perfect for me, anyway. What better way to show your love than crispity-chewy, chocolate- peanut- buttery cookies? My Chocolate Peanut Butter Zebra Cookies are everything a peanut butter chocoholic could want. Forget the jewelry and cologne this year and make a double batch of these! (Just kidding about the jewelry. Definitely remember the jewelry.)

And to put your peanut-buttery gift of love over the top, hand write a bit of poetry and attach it to the cookie plate or tin. All out of poetic inspiration? Here’s a smoldering sonnet for you:

Sonnet XVII

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

– Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets, 1960)
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Mmmmm. Delicious.