if you see; love

The rain never let up that summer. Instead, everyday was so incredibly dewey that it saturated my brain, it soaked through my clothes. I was submerged in an underwater cave, cautiously sifting through to try and find myself. The pain I endured was looming. I always knew when it was coming and I’m not too sure why I am writing this in the past tense. I feel it drip from top to bottom and then I am electrocuted, as water does when it is met with a conductor, with a feeling so putrid I hadn’t any idea where it originated. I just am shocked, over and over again at my inability to locate, to make clear what it is I am doing, to justify what I am thinking. How this is distinct, ours, only. You were my first good morning to goodnight. I wake up everyday ready to waste it. 

Just like the rain, I persisted. It was my curiosity that kept me afloat. I knew that I needed to have more self knowledge, I knew that I had much more to give and to unlock, and that I could flood him with stories and philosophies if I kept insisting that every day I turned on the flashlight and dug deep. The uncertainty convinced me that it was real. That this IS real. That maybe I could stand to be easier on myself, I could be easier on him, and I could be easier on them. That the rain dries and that one day, when I am in the middle of a drought, I will be praying for the time when the rain never stopped falling and that I had him nuzzled up in my neck and that for a moment I could feel something that wasn’t my own deterioration. Instead I am loved and I can cry loudly on his shoulder over nothing because that’s what I do. I don’t cry alone in the dark anymore to the beat of the rain falling outside my window. I know that I have trouble living in the moment, I am always living for the moment to come. He is the opposite. He savors. He licks his lips. He stares deeply into my eyes and his cheeks always redden when I open the door and say hello. He is intricate and he cares and I could stand to come up from my search at the bottom of the ocean for air sometimes, because I know he will be waiting for me with pursed lips. If I could fly, I think I would fly to him. 

I found myself hoping for rain, it was more romantic that way. In hindsight, what I really sought after were monsoons. I adore them, they are like a baptism of sorts. 

Maybe together we can part the sea and find the road less traveled. We can hum along to songs about love and I can laugh at your falsetto and you can mock the way I dance and maybe we can be happy, together, forever. Only you know, and only you notice and only you sympathize and I want you now and always right next to me because if I am stuck in this world I want to spend it with you because you make it bearable and rosy. I don’t want anything in return either I just want to hold your hand and listen to you talk about the things you are passionate about and the things that you are less passionate about because I am most curious about you anyways. 

We didn’t ever need an umbrella during those days, because the water we were twirling beneath seemed to settle the fire that was constantly burning in between my thighs. My heart dampens when I think of you because it absorbs everything I feel like a sponge under running water, except you can’t squeeze it. Suddenly you are everything that I ever wanted to pull me out of the labyrinth, you are the thread, the flashlight; you are the rain. I am hoping that maybe I can find myself within you. 

Everything around us seemed to be urging us on, don’t you think? I like being neurotic together.

I let him inside my body, and it is his for some time, until he has expelled it, emptied it. Emptied himself into it. Glass half full or glass half empty. He decides what happens to it next. I wait for him to discover it, but I don’t give him a tour.

Sitting with you in the kitchen, talking of anything, drinking tea, I love you. And when I am lying on your chest with my ear pressed against your pulsing heart, I let myself sink deeper. Im burying my face into your arms because I like them so much. We drift together. And although every coming day is the oldest I’ve ever been, it is also quite young after all and I think I can do this now, be here with him like this. It’s all right, as I have all the time in the world. Though thinking of these things makes me overcome by the saddest happiness. 

I’ve since realized that more often than not I bury myself. I let stories get the best of me, I travel out of bounds with zero consideration for my subjects. Writing this even is rather selfish. My words are just a pity party but I keep feeding myself more, Isn’t that what I want: more? I have a problem letting things go, letting things happen, taking my hands off the whips for once. You surprise me though, which is quite comforting. You let me be and you teach me how to not worry about the red and the water and the balance and the cancer and the girls before me and the mood and the mirrors. You are everything, and you have given me everything that I was worried about before so I think I am just getting used to not being so afraid all the time. And even when I am afraid, I know that I am not alone. I can, knowingly and a little less cautiously, run toward my fears. I can release myself to you, if you want me to, and I think that I want to. Time isn’t an enemy anymore; time is a tool so valuable that I plan on using it until I’ve depleted all of its resources. I wish I could lend some to you. You and me, we can withstand the tired trials of time and we can tower over eclipses and maybe together we can even manifest the ellipsis that used to daunt me in my past life. 

So if you can see this, then love more. 

Love with your actions, love with your expressions and love with the way that you react to frustrations. Love with patience, and with tenderness. Love with gentle and soft kisses, matched with smooth and slow tickling touches. Love wildly, love lucidly, love naturally. Love with tacet affection and understanding. Love obviously, love completely, love like you might never get the chance to love again and love like you mean it. Love with interest, with intrigue, with intellect. Indulge in love. Love me just in case I don’t love myself. Love me because no one else can, because no one else will. Love with support, love without barriers. Love loudly and love proudly. Love so hard that I can feel its pull even when we are miles apart. Love until I am comfortable. Love so that I am secure. Love me privately, that way I know that you are mine and I am yours. Love like your mother is watching. Love romantically and love platonically. Love like my mother is watching. Love without complications, love without coincidence, love without comparison. Love with compromise and consideration. Love is not only for when it is convenient. Love cannot be replicated. Love doesn’t have to be asked for and love happens when you least expect it. Love is contagious but also pure; love spreads through thick and thin. Love blossoms and sometimes love dies. Love me because I love you. I love you in the morning and I love you at night and I love you at every point in between. I love what you hate, and I hate what you love. I love your voice at 8 am on a Sunday and I love the feeling of you at 8:05 when you pull me in closer because “someone that pretty deserves extra.” Love is not lust. Love is just a little bit of longing. Love is a lot of laughter. Love is a whole lot of luck and listening and learning and life. Love is nothing without action, without reciprocation, without laying it all out on the battlefield. Love doesn’t play games. Love is vulnerable and it bares the soul and it is willing. Love is a home, not a vacation. Love is not to be taken for granted, love doesn’t work if it is kept at face value; if it is kept subordinate, secondary. Love shouldn’t be effortless, love shouldn’t have to beg, but love should hurt because love is beautiful. Love is trust and love is compassion, sympathy, empathy. Love should keep you up at night, crying, but at least you might never cry alone again (might.) Love means that it is okay to cry when things are going well. Love is dependable and it doesn’t crack and love sees. Love knows. Love knows when you are struggling without you having to say it and love also knows how to make it better. Love knows how to invoke a smile and love knows compatibility with selflessness. Love is togetherness, being impossibly interconnected. Love is me sitting in your sweatshirt eating ice cream with your hand on my hip. Love is more than just saying I love you. Love is a want; Love is a need. Love seeks to give more than it does to receive. Love doesn’t let me go, no matter what. Love is when you call me randomly on a Tuesday because you missed the soft pinges of my voice, and I wish you could see my eyes right then and there because that’s when I knew that I loved you, too. Love jumps on the occasion. Love dotes on me. Love is a kiss at every redlight and love means that it is hard to say goodbye. Love is a hug so tight I can almost feel my ribs crushing; almost. Love is after a year of me and you, I still get goosebumps when you tuck my hair behind my ear and love is our first slow dance. Alone in my room under the colorful string lights around the window, half naked, listening to our song and you are laughing in my ear. You are always laughing in my ear. Love is you picking me up and flinging me over your shoulder because we just can’t seem to get enough of each other and I was too clumsy and I stepped on your foot but it was perfect anyways and love is our hearts beating in sync. Love is skin against skin; the friction, my mind versus yours. 

A body can withstand almost anything. And when that doesn’t hold true, then my soul will deal with the rest. Physicality is not love. I starve myself until I can’t. I love until I die.

 

xoxo,

Vanessa M. – finess5