Dear You,
Here is all you need to know if you think you can stay on for more than 8 seconds. Let me warn you: it’s a rough ride for someone that’s used to his own trained girl, but for the one that gets goosebumps around a campfire, the depths you’ll discover alongside lil’ ole me will leave you feeling like falling into an abyss isn’t intimidating enough.
At first glance, I may seem easy to love. My appearance won’t break a mirror, my words are made of clouds, and my touch can heal what stitches can’t. We will gather for a meal, and I will make an excuse to prolong our scheduled encounter. It will not be something routine, though. I will ask to throw a pigs-skin in the parking lot light, or we will go to a deserted park and sing on the swings. You’ll feel like this is different. For me, I’m just living. Next thing you know, the sun will rise like clockwork and you will have read to me your entire book of life. Now, what you decide to do next is crucial.
Ask me about myself, my family, my childhood, my dreams, and my pain.
I can almost guarantee I will not tell you, but I need to know that you are curious. You won’t know the stitches and the glue I have taken to fix myself until at least a year of proof that you can handle what lies beneath my sweet and simple smile. You won’t know that I used to avoid looking at my own reflection in public places because even a glimpse of my imperfections was enough to bully my emotions to tears. I will tell you to not talk down to me, but you will not know that it is because my brother wrote “stupid” on my soul in permanent marker, and I have spent every single day trying to prove to myself that I am more than those six letters. You, along with the rest of the world, will not know that the color of my tears is black and stains my face. At most, you will see a quivering bitten lip that is sure to turn into a big smile while my eyes glaze over until they shut completely as to not let anyone see the deep sadness that haunts me everyday. This is how I like it, and I know as soon as let you in to see the truth, I will be shaken to the core. I have to prepare my mind for the memories that will be reawakened when I tell you that I had never met a real friend until the sixth grade, but we only learned how to be true friends after high school. Remembering the midnights filled with agonizing emptiness and constant neglect will completely destroy me all over again. Nobody has seen me when I was just a pile of broken artifacts, only after I had glued myself together into a mosaic did people take notice. So, when you’re thinking of telling me you love me, let me be the first to help you realize you love the art I have become. I am horrified at the idea that you will put a band-aid over the cuts my broken glass will give you instead of letting your blood paint life back into the ashes of my brittle heart.
When I finally open the gates of my own personal hell, please just listen.
I did not go searching for the key of misery for you to interrupt with your sob stories. I struggle with the same mistake, so please let me know when I need to just listen to you. Our suffering is our own. Although similar be it may; we perceive our tribulations alone. So, we should speak about them in monologues.
I am incredibly comfortable in who I am, but am insanely insecure in everything I do.
This is the first - and arguably the most important - contradiction in my bones. I do not need you tell me I am easy on the eyes twenty-seven times in a day or even a week. Tell me once when I have done my makeup, once when I am in my sweats, and once when I am ill. Tell me I am exquisite once when I am kind and gentle and once when I am cruel and sinful. Then, I will know you fancy my appearance always and will look for those compliments in your eyes more-so than your lips. Being aesthetic is great, but not my first priority. I need you to tell me I am intelligent both when I am reciting something I learned from a TedEd video verbatim, and when I am looking for my phone while you and I are FaceTiming. Make me feel talented after I execute a Bach piece flawlessly on a Steinway and also when I am pitchy singing my favorite songs in the car. I do not look for validation for who I am, but it is nice to be reassured that my demons are, in fact, lying to me when they whisper knives into the backs of my insecurities.
****SPRINKLE SOME ACTION ON TOP OF YOUR WORDS****
Call me crazy, but relationships over the phone are just words, and words (although they are my love-language) are not enough to seduce me. Every Shakespeare sonnet could make the journey from your screen to mine with a trip to a satellite in between, and it will not be enough for me. I am begging you to make your blue bubbles say “Can I take you somewhere nice tonight so you can wear your nicest dress?” or “I know it’s like 1 a.m. but grab a coat and blanket; we’re going on an adventure :)” I crave action - and I don’t mean sex. I need the real intimacy. The kind of warmth that you can’t have with just anyone. These cellular devices have made it so easy to make communicating plans with people so easy, but instead they are used to replace real-live relationships. I don’t buy into that. You can let that satellite see heart emojis a googolplex times, but it is as meaningful as Deutsch is to an American. If you are not going to spare a few numbers on a clock for me, then I will erase yours.
Let me oversimplify my point: in order to be handed the trophy for earning my ocean of sincerity and loyalty, all you have to do, my dear, is give me time and attention. I echo Thoreau when I say that simplicity is key. However, our world loves to turn a walkway into a labyrinth, but I will wait patiently for the man who makes doors through the walls to create a straight path to my willow tree.
I do not look for love, I let love happen. So, when your feet point in my direction, let them walk towards me.
From,
Me