I am worthy of love.
I am not the insults past lovers have called me.
I have so much to give.
Pure and loyal love.
Which will be reciprocated.
I will be loved so fiercely.
No one.
Not even me.
Will be able to doubt it.
I will be loved so fully that I can show the depths of my love to another.
I am worthy of love.

It’s not my fault I love you so.
You made me like this.
It’s not my fault you were burned by another.
I cannot erase those scars, but I promise I am cool to the touch.
I do not want to disconnect.
Don’t make me.
I can go on without you and I’ll be fine.
Maybe that would be easier.
But I don’t want easier.
I don’t want to stop loving you.

I still believe in us.
I still believe we’ll make it.
I catch glimpses of him coming back to me.
I know I can be his home if he’ll let me.

I am more happy around him than without him.
Despite his half-affection.
It’s not that he’s not trying, or not being nice.
He cuddles me and buys me flowers-
But that doesn’t conceal the way his eyes don’t whisper I love you anymore.

I love you and I’ve run out of excuses of why I shouldn’t say it.

I’m not saying this out of insecurity.
I’m saying this from a place of confidence because even if you break up with me, I want you to know.

I don’t want to have held in what I know. What I have known since February, maybe before.

I want to be vulnerable with you because I’ve never felt like I could before.

So I need to say this to you unprompted.
I need to say it first.
I love you.
I love this version of you.
I don’t love the idea of you.
I love this life with you.
I love you more than I have ever loved anyone else.

Do you want me to love you?
I mean do you actually want THIS love. THIS life.
Because if you want me to love you, truly.
It will be engulfing.
I will love you to depths you have never felt.
It will be perspective shifting.
It will change both of us.

And here’s the thing.
I don’t think you’ve ever been loved properly before.
And I’d like to do just that.

There are ghosts of you.
In words that don’t matter.
Ones I forget until I say them in a moment of absent mindedness and realize I do because of you.