Everyone tells me the same things but you. They tell me the same things to protect things they love. I am at ease when I am with you.
A few weeks ago you and I went to sleep and laid down perfectly next to each other. I found out that you don’t like to hold me when you’re tired and I wondered why. The first night I laid there, very still, while you were completely asleep wondering if the stiffness in my body would go away when the laying down next to each other became more of a habit. That night I fantasized about the way you hold me, in the least sexual way. I just liked to think about how nicely I fit into your arms. You choose less invasive forms of intimacy. You press our foreheads together. You are the only person who loves me enough to stay gentle. You love me softly. You call me a woman, you call anyone else a girl. I am a woman. I am your woman. You love me the way I think I deserve.
There is a caveat to the way I strive to love you. The way I love you is consuming; it consumes my thoughts, it consumes my body, I like to let it take me. This has been my biggest hurdle, though; I think you are more aware of it lately. I endeavor for the perfection of consumption and get emotional in the process. It’s not because of you, it’s the circumstance. On “Say Yes to the Dress”, the dresses Lori warns customers not to try on are the ones they cannot afford. I’ve got things like that. I feel disappointment when I try on things like having you stay the night, being entirely alone, eating the foods I crave and am not allowed to have, doing impulsive things like driving to Austin all alone just to get my ears pierced and see some sculptures in a dead lady named Elizabet’s house. And at least right now, things like those get taken away sooner or later. I cannot let life devour my body like it wants to—yet. I cannot do it yet because you get taken away, along with my temporary independence, and I can’t help but cry. It’s hard to have patience.
Historically, I despise sweet things. I should dislike the taste that all of this leaves in my mouth. I don’t let either of us indulge often and that is my one regret so far. You are right again: The pain of indulgence is worth memories of things I can look forward to. I wish I would’ve washed your hair the first time we took a shower together, I wish I would’ve said yes earlier to driving around neighborhoods so I could see places you spent time at when you were little, I should have let you keep me a little longer that one night.
So I get emotional more often lately and it’s always when you’re there. It’s not a fault in either of us. You tell me to give into being tired, you tell me when you think I would feel better if I’d just let myself cry, everything is okay because you love me and you allow me to try. I try to vocalize what’s wrong and what’s in my head. It doesn’t work almost all of the time.
But because sometimes the things that work against me stop and I find time to allow myself to be consumed for just a little while longer than either of us is used to, the second night we fell asleep in the same bed was better. That night I slept quickly and you stayed up watching a version of me that was completely free of my usual anxiety. Did that make you hopeful at all?
You should know that when I tell you I miss you, I really mean that I am desperate to find more hours in the day so I can balance everything out and find more ways to bring you into my life. I’d like to have you there all of the time, even if you’re there very quietly. I miss you. I am homesick. You make the places I go, home.
You are everything to me.
