I am so afraid
of loving you
because
I am so afraid
of losing you.

you are my longing and
strange, half-formed desire
for a touch or embrace or emotion
i can read.

you are my eight years of commitment and
inability to understand how i
really feel about
you, or me, or us together.

you are my uncertainty and
apprehensiveness to change
what we've only just barely recovered,
what we'd so utterly lost.

you are my confusion and
"am i really feeling this way?"
or am i just replacing
him with you.

you are my selfishness and
want for some sort of stability.
a love that is
only mine.

you are my insecurity and
lack of petite, feminine qualities.
being so distinctly not
your type.

you are my happiness and
joyful, unabashed smiles.
with easy laughter shining
in your bright eyes.

so i will spell it out for you in words and phrases and half-finished sentences.
and when you refuse to listen i will paint it out with acrylics and oils and pens.
and when you refuse to see i will press all my words and phrases and colors and inks into your skin so that you can feel. so that you can feel what i feel. so that you can know that i love you.
but don’t be confused because i don’t love you that way.
i don’t love you the way they love the movies.
or the way your sister loves herself.
or the way my mother loves the person my father used to be.
or the way you loved your ex-girlfriend.
i love you the way the fish love the sea. the way the birds love the air. the way the trees love the earth. i love you like home.
i love you like you never hurt me.
i love you like you never made those mistakes.
i love you like i will give everything i am to make you happy.
i love you like it won’t matter if you never notice. i love you like that.

I want it.
And if it takes that long to get there, it’s okay.
Because I want you.

I want your rainy days and foggy mornings and nights in front of a fireplace.

I want your red brick and cobblestone and antique facades.

I want your rivers and towns and mountains.

I want your eyes and words and touch.

I want your hope and grief and quiet contentment.

I want what I’ve lost and what you’ve gained and what we never had.

If it takes that long to get there, it’s okay.
Because I want it.
I want you.

you are this: unbridled jealousy and paranoid, tumbling down.
you are the king and queen falling from your throne.

because you look to the jester,
who looks to the queen,
who looks to you.

but your eyes are filled with illusions
and tricks
and you lose sight of her royal devotion.

we are the knight and the lady, lost in the castle.
and we were once secrets and happiness.

but the knight went off to war and the lady grew tired of waiting.
so now the knight courts his princess and the lady nods her head.

and the queen and the lady grow weary.
because we’re too old for fairytales.
because the lady no longer believes in happy endings.
because the queen can’t seem to slay the dragon.

my queen, my queen, what can we do?
the king doesn’t listen and the knight doesn’t care.

you’ve lost your heart to the king.
i’ve lost my all in the war.

my queen, my queen, what can we do?

i’ll raise the shield and you raise the sword.
we will slay this dragon.
we will hope for our ever after.