“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; So I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”
-Pablo Neruda
Though this is beautiful, it is wrong.
I don’t want your chest to be my chest.
I don’t want your hand to be my hand.
I don’t want your breath to be my breath.
I don’t want your eyes to be my eyes.
I don’t want your sleep to be my sleep.
I want to exist apart from you but with you.
If you’re chest were mine, I could never offer it to rest your head upon when they day has been long or listen to your heart beat as we lay together in the soft morning light.
If you’re hand were my hand, I could not hold it on long drives from place to place or adorn it with rings.
If you’re breath were my breath, I would have no breath to be taken away when I wake and see you sleeping, cast in the blue of night, like art. I could not hear you singing softly in other rooms of our home.
If you’re eyes were my eyes, I would have no place to get lost as we chip away the time talking under blankets to the smell of coffee. I could not see them soften as you kiss me on the tips of your toes.
If your sleep were my sleep, I could not dream of you and all of our futures yet to come. I could not hold you to me on cold nights when our shivers match.
I do not want that love.
I want to love you full of knowing. Practiced. Perfected. Artful. You deserve nothing less.
I want to love you full with pride for the complex extraordinary creature that you are and are becoming.
But I do not wish to be one. If you were not you and I were not me, this love could only be half as good.
And no poetry could make that beautiful.
You are beautiful.
You are perfection, separate from me. And we are perfect together.