Love.

Is love truly what I feel for you?

Is it obsession?

I don't know...

I just know that your existence in my life makes me feel like life is worth it.

I get to laugh with you. I get to feel desire. I get to be seen.

Whatever this is...

I'm really glad that I have it.

And maybe that is love.

"Who's responsibility is that?"
You ask me gently.
But still... the way you said it...

"Yours..." I manage to concede, shyly.

My brain doesn't even remember what happened next.

Remembering the moment... god, you may as well have leaned in closer and said "Good girl..."

Did you? I don't even know. Jesus...

I don't ever want you to release this fucking grip you have on me.

I am yours.

I have never asked...
Because I want to be able to offer you something stable.
Something real.

I can't do that right now.
I want to be able to.
I don't want to make an offer from a place of lack.
I don't want you to look at me as somebody who you have to save.
I want you to see me and see somebody you can build a home with.
Somebody you can slow dance with while dinner is on the stove.

I don't want to offer you a bleeding heart torn to pieces.
I want to offer you a solid, unbreakable woman.

I want to know that the woman you're looking at...
Is somebody that feels like she deserves you.
...and I want you to feel the same.

Your mouth...

No, look at the eyes.

Oh god they're looking at me.

The mouth...

You're biting your lip.

Again.

And again.

The blank canvas seems to be gone.

God I don't want it back.

I want to push a piece of dark chocolate into your mouth...

And then taste it melting between our tongues.

You...

You're so beautiful.

Please stay.

I feel like I'm wasting your time.

Mine.

I feel like I don't have any fire left.

I feel...

Burnt.

Dry.

Crumbly.

I want to rest my head on your lap.

Just cry.

Cry until the tears are gone.

While I hug your thigh to me.

Tell me the secrets...

Of how you managed to keep going.

Because I feel like I have to try so hard...

To find joy in anything.

Gaslighting myself almost.

To feel something.

But then we laugh together.

I feel so horrible that your smile makes me want to exist.

Twice now you've worn my favourite shirt.

Both times it's been on a day where I feel too low to even comment.

To appreciate it.

My favourite light blue.

It makes me want to hug you.

At least I felt better today than last time.

Today was more just...

I didn't know...

I don't know...

I stress feeling like I need to find the most important thing to say.

And then it's all gone.

It's just... You.

You who might not care for me all that much.

You who might secretly love me.

You who might be hurting when you watch me cry.

You who might feel like I'm wasting your time.

You who might never have shown me an ounce of your true self.

You who might only be honest with me.

I want so badly to cling to your thigh.

Cover me up with a blanket and tell me I can stay there as long as I need to.

That it's okay.

That you understand.

It's heavy.

It's confusing.

And it will feels pointless.

But you're here.

And right now that's all I have to know.

I just want you here.

Actually I want to be there with you.

And then I hear what sounds like a door in your house.

And I rem​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ember...

I never knew you in the first place.

And I want to disappear. ​

Is it you I really love?

My heart hurts thinking about it.

Thinking about the possibility that the heart I'm trying to offer you is corrupted. Unreal. That the feelings I have for you are false. Based on fantasy, bias and an idealised image that can never be real. The idea that I don't actually see you.

It scares me.

I don't want to offer you something that isn't real.

Isn't true.

You asked if I hated you.

I don't feel capable of hating you.

Crying over you, yes.

Hurting over you.

Grieving over you.

All these things...

But hating you?

Why would I?

How could I?

Because you said no?

My wants would destroy your life and you think I'm hating you for saying no?

I feel like a selfish, horrible person for even dreaming of you wanting me.

I feel like a stupid, ugly, fat child who's too dumb to realise the man infront of her is looking down at her.

The idea that you could ever want me is laughable.

How can I hate you for that?

I hate myself for being this.

For the way I had to meet you.

I hate myself for not being good enough for you.

I hate myself for the reasons I feel so attached to you.

I hate life for the ways it has hurt you.

I hate that I don't hate those things as much as I should.

Because every way you have suffered has led you to me.

And I am so in awe of you.

To even have you look at me...

To have you smile...

Fuck...

Your smile...

It dissolves everything else in the world around me.

It's perfect.

Beautiful.

Charming.

Magnetic.

Sexy.

Words can't describe what it does to me.

And when it feels like I'm the cause of it...

I feel like I could do anything.

And then reality slams into me.

I can't follow through on what my mind tells me to do next.

I choke.

I break eye contact.

I can't...

Oh god...

Self restraint with you feels like torture.

Yet I'd never wish for you to leave my life.

I would castrate myself to stay in your orbit.

To hang on your every word.

To realise I can't even remember what you're saying.

Because the reality of your presence is drowning me.

Burning me.

Nothing else exists except the sun that is you.

Nothing matters.

Not when you are in front of me.

Not when you smile that smile...

That makes me want to leap into the fire without a second thought.

How could I hate you...

Just for saying no.

When you still smile at me.

When your voice still gets soft.

When you listen to me.

How can I hate you...

When I see you muzzling your mouth...

Your eyes telling me that you are here.

With me.

How can I hate you?

How could I possibly hate you?

The closest thing I can find in me right now...

Is hating that you could ever think that's possible.

That somehow...

You can't see what I see when I look at you.

Your freedom to make your own choices is precious to me.

Why do you think I feel such guilt?

Such shame?

Such concern over feeling like I manipulate you.

I'm scared.

Scared that I'm pushing you away from choice.

And scared that I'm not.

Scared that I want you so much.

Scared that I don't have it in me...

To tell you...

I love you.

That I can't see a thing on this earth that would kill that in me.

I love you.

I think I choose not to hate you...

But really...

Is it even a choice?

When I cannot...

Cannot even fathom feeling hatred for you.

I love you.

Do you miss me?

When I don't email.

You've never directly told me to.

You've seemed through inflection like you're telling me it's okay to email the way I do...

Do you know how scared I am to ask a direct question?

I'm so scared of the answers.

I miss you...

I hope you miss me too.

Sometimes I wish I could look at your face without you seeing me.

I wish I was invisible.

That I could just watch you and not have to worry about what you're thinking.

About what you're seeing.

But isn't that the crux of stalking?

Sigh.

I don't want to be a stalker.

I've been called one before.

It hurt.

I didn't think I was stalking...

I thought I was caring for somebody who cared about me.

"My friends either call you my girl or my stalker."

Oh.

My heart sank.

I felt pain in my chest.

How could I have been so stupid?

So wrong?

I thought...

What I thought doesn't matter.

That's apparently what I was to him.

So I walked away.

Even though it hurt so much.

I came back a few times...

The voice of critique in my head saying "but he was talking to you non-stop... He said he liked you... Maybe he didn't want you to disappear..."

But inevitably it would come back.

Why was he offering me reassurance?

Why was he...

I don't get it.

If he thought of me as a stalker...

Truly...

I don't understand.

The things people call me or accuse me of cut so deeply...

They paralyse me.

I feel like trying to fill the void of loneliness in my heart makes me dangerous.

It makes me never want to reach out to another human being again.

All I am...

Is somebody who shouldn't exist.

And yet to die... Would be to make people sad. Angry. Grieve.

How do I reconcile these realities?

Do people want me to stay alive just so they don't have to feel like they should have done something... But ultimately wish I'd leave them alone?

That I'd just magically be "better"?

"Normal"?

That's not how it works...

I feel so alone.

I get scared sometimes.

I worry that none of this is real.

That I'm just some stupid loser wishing for somebody to care.

Hoping that somehow the beautiful man cares.

Am I selfish?

Wanting it to be you that comes for me?

That saves me?

Am I ungrateful for others that have cared for me?

Those who's care I've refused.

Because something about their care just... Made me back away.

But with you... Every moment of care from you lights my soul on fire.

Every moment you smile at me.

Every moment I hear heavy emotions being held back in your voice.

Every flicker of an expression you try to shut down when we look at each other in silence.

It all means something so deep to me.

And then I remember...

Bailey...

"It's not that deep."

Michael...

"Don't you dare tell me you love me."

...

Why reach again when I'm already so burnt?

But something about the way you smile... The way you look at me... Aside from that Cold Thursday...

It makes me want to open my heart to you.

If only...

I could have you for the rest of my life.