I want to learn how to love you in a way that makes you feel like every other love you’ve known was just child’s play. I want to know everything you’ve ever dreamed true love would feel like and look like, and then I want you to sit back, relax, and let me bathe you in all of it. I want to smother you with it until you believe that you’re worthy of every last drop of it. I want it to penetrate you to the deepest darkest core of you, chasing out all the doubt and evicting any freeloading skeletons from your proverbial closet. I want it to shake you awake and bring you the courage needed to face any hardships that come your way. I want it to linger with you and always remain a part of your awareness. I want your subconscious to incorporate it into your worldview as an unquestionable fact. I want to love you in every way that you’ve ever needed to feel love. I want you to know what it feels like to be truly loved and to have unwavering faith that the love I have for you is true love. 

I want to spend years standing by you, supporting you, encouraging you, and healing you. In ways you never thought possible. Reaching levels you never thought attainable. I want you to know that I’m always there for you. Even when you make mistakes. Even when you let me down. Even when you fail. I want you to know I’ll always be there to help you pick up the pieces and try again. 

I want you to know I’ll always forgive you, even if you don’t believe you’re worthy of forgiveness. I want to always try, for us, no matter what. 

Locked away, deep inside of me is a longing to show love in this way. I wish to express all my love, so much more than I want to be loved or to be in love. I’ve longed to find someone safe enough to give my love to. Someone who will appreciate it and not take it for granted. Despite having loved before, I’ve never felt safe enough to express my love in this way, in its entirety. I’ve always held back. Intuitively knowing that it would not be appreciated and I would be left further depleted. 

I NEED to love in this way because this is what love means to me. It’s the only kind of love I dream of. It’s the only kind of love that will soothe my soul. It’s the reason why none of my relationships have ever worked because I’ve always had to hint, ask, beg, and plead for the ones I’ve loved to show me that they love me just as much. And the things I was asking for were the bare minimum. The ways that I want to love you are the ways I’ve prayed that someone will love me. Someone who will cherish it enough to return it, without hesitation, because they feel it too. 

I want to love YOU in this way because that is what you pull from me. You made me feel safe enough that I was able to entertain thoughts of showing you how I’ve always wanted to love someone. And in those thoughts of pouring out the love I’ve been storing away for years, I began to fall in love even more with the idea of being in love with you. 

That was the beginning of the end for me because from that point onward I couldn’t look into your eyes and not see our love story unfolding. Every time you held me I couldn’t help but believe that you’d hold me until the edge of eternity, vowing to never let go. I was amazed at the thought that no one else has fit so perfectly. No one else has felt so safe. Every time you smiled at me, every time you kissed me, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that you were feeling it too.

You see, love is a choice. I’ve never given anyone all of my love because no one has ever made me believe that they had those levels of love in them. I never trusted that they felt the same. I never believed that they would always be there for me. I always knew that the love they had for me was nothing near the amount of love I felt for them. They claimed to love me and they said those magical words so many times that they lost all meaning to me, because they never bothered to show me. 

But with you, with you, I felt loved. For the first time in my life, I felt that someone was able to see every part of me, and still love me. You saw me. You understood me in a way I’ve never experienced before or even knew existed. With a calm acceptance, and without judgment, you soothed me. Other men were always content with putting in minimal effort, treating me like a term paper they put off starting until the day before it’s due. They only gave me scraps of what I asked for. But you… You reciprocated. You expressed it with your actions. You invested your time and mindful presence into my well-being. Your love was inspiring. Your love changed me. Pieces of my heart that had gone cold and bitter began to warm up to the idea of loving you. 

That’s when I received the hardest blow I’ve ever taken. You didn’t feel the same. You never wanted to experience any of this with me. It hurt worse than a gut punch. You disemboweled me, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up with my bloody intestines and die. I’ve never felt so insignificant, so small, and so stupid. How could I have been so delusional? Like a marionette you danced around me, perfectly puppeting all the steps needed to penetrate the fortress I’d built over the years. You snuck inside my soul. Your disguise had me hypnotized, unable to resist. You picked up my heartstrings and PULLED. Now I’m the puppet with which you play.

I know I should let go. I know I should stop believing that anything I felt was real. And maybe this is why I’ve been so cautious about entertaining the idea of opening up my heart and pouring all my love into anyone before. Maybe it’s why I’ve always held back. Because even though I was never able to show you all the love I have for you, I felt it, I believed in it, I wanted it, I was ready to give every last drop of it, and now I’m falling apart because I can’t let go. I’m left stunned, dumb in disbelief. Holding onto the hope that denial has allowed me to keep.