While it’s no secret that former President Barack Obama knows a thing or two about piling on the romance with his tributes to wife Michelle Obama, a set of newly released old love letters to a college girlfriend proves that the 56-year-old has always had a way with words.

Emory University revealed that it is now archiving nine letters spanning 30 pages of love messages dedicated to Alexandra McNear from the former POTUS, who was in his early 20s at the time.

The letters—which were penned in 1982 to 1984 after the future politician left California’s Occidental College to transfer across the country to Columbia University—reflect the student’s anguish over the long-distance relationship and his musings about a new interest in a future in politics.

“I think of you often, though I stay confused about my feelings,” the college student writes in one 1983 letter to his onetime love. “It seems we will ever want what we cannot have; that’s what binds us; that’s what keeps us apart.”

In another, he romantically reflects on a phone call from her, writing: “Hearing your voice was like discovering a passage in a book I had read a while ago.” Swoon.

Emory University

RELATED: Barack Obama Is Returning to Politics for the First Time Since Leaving the White House

See the former president’s romantic musings in full when copies of the letters go on display on Friday, Oct. 20, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Emory’s Rose Library.

Click Here: chloe perfume