He's just a little creature

“With all the pain that coincided with the presence of you, I will never trade it. I would not want to entertain a life where I never met you, where I never got to be your friend, nor will I ever want there to be a world where I did not fall for you in the naïve way that I did. I do not choose to entertain a life where I never kneeled on the floor, pleading to the universe to get you to love me. While a life without pain sounds like a fictional luxury, it is one I never want. I do not dream of a life with no you. I used to look at you with deep affection. Holding you felt like I was granted a privilege. Seeing your smile felt like a prize. I worshipped you, and while the feeling was never mutual, I would not go back and erase it. To have loved you, was everything but an honor. It was tiresome, painful, and debilitating. It was a feeling I do not wish upon the one I hate the most. It was a feeling leaving any young girl that had an ounce in my maturity to grimace. Yet I find myself believing, in fact knowing, that I would not be the woman I am today if it was not for the pesky feeling. For I had loved you the only way I knew how and for all that it was worth, I did a damn good job. I must not write our love, our narrative, as something poetic. What I shared for you momentarily is not something one reads in a book. It is not meant to be beautiful. It was raw, messy, chaotic, and evermore complex. The reason why I will always say no to the question that if given the chance, I would redo what I had with you, is because I knew that despite all the emotions you gave me, what it really was, was necessary. I don’t want to erase you. I don’t want you to be a fading memory. I want you in my brain as a constant reminder of what not to do. Of what not to endure, even for love. I want you there as a continual reminder that I have enough strength to walk away from someone I loved. So yes. I would live it all over again and I would not change a single thing because for the first time in so long, your absence has felt like a notability. To know that I am thankful for the heartache you caused, while knowing I will never care for you the same, is a comfort I would want to relive any day. The only thing I take back is myself, for the sheer fact that you will never have her ever again.”

“A love letter to a man I love you. That is all I know. That is all I am capable of knowing and yet I have a nagging feeling my love for you is not enough. In spite of everything I must tell you all it is that I love about you. Even if you desire more, even if throughout our years you believe it may fade, I must. I love the way you always manage to wake before me despite sleeping after me. I love the way you comb through my hair gently and yet with purpose as to wake me up so you don’t feel lonely in the mornings for very long. I love the way you smile and lie through your teeth as you tell me “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to wake you.” I love the way you complain about the cold air the mornings provide while still denying the blanket and telling me the warmth cascading from my body is better than any blanket. I love the way you drive out laughter from my chest. Not stopping until you see me struggle to catch my breath. I love your obnoxious laugh and how loud it is. Especially how loud it can get at the most inappropriate of settings. I love the way you cover your face with your two hands when your face gets too red. I love the way you dedicate songs not only for the words but for the memory of it. I love the way you compare me to the greatest love songs. I love the way you argue with me on music. I love the way you let me play my music in the car anyway. I love the way you yell at me. I love the way you try to act calm when I frustrate you but you give up when emotions come to a peak. I love the way you try to solve the problem without letting me leave. I love your glares as I try to tell you how I feel. I love when your eyes soften as I cry from the ache of the fight. I love the way you stop yourself from hugging me before the argument is solved. I love the way you get upset at me when I doubt how much you love me. I love your disheartened sighs and the way you roll your eyes. I love when you cry because you can’t help but doubt if I love you. I love when you told me to look away whenever you cried in front of me but now you let me see them. I love the way you always offer to sleep on the couch after every fight knowing I won’t let you so you know I’ll never be mad enough for you to go away. I love your good. I love your contentment. I love your beauty. I love your evil. I love your bad. I love your ugly. I will love you when you’re happy. I will love you when you’re sad. I will love you when you’re mad at me. I will love you when you want space. I will love when you crave me. I will love you when you’re crying too hard your nose runs. I will love you when you’re sick and beg me to take care of you. I will love you when you’re overbearing of my health and beg me to drink water. I will love you when you’re drunk and ugly singing to me on the car ride home. I will love you when you refuse to get in the shower even though there’s slight vomit on your shirt. I will love you when you’re passive aggressive and I will love you when you’re just plain aggressive. I will love you until there is nothing else to love, and then I will love you more. I will always love you.”

“The truth is, I should’ve believed that Love was never real for me the moment Avery left. I never got the flowers. I never got the compliments, the goodnight kisses, or the longing stares to let me know they were looking at me. I grew up with parents who bickered like no tomorrow. Threats to leave forever were constantly thrown around, and the sound of keys and a loud truck engine revving to prove their point was a sound I got all too familiar with. My environment consisted of nothing but glowing red arrows pointing to the “inevitable” fact that true Love is fictional. You only see that Love in the movies, and if you ever saw it in real life, it never existed for people like you. I’ve been told my whole adult life, the very little of it I’ve experienced at least, that no one would blame me for losing hope. I’ve been hurt an unbearable amount of times by all types of situations, and yet here I am, admiring the old couple smiling at one another on an old wooden bench on the far left side of the park. I find myself gawking over the same cheesy romantic comedies and still fiending for a personal rendition of 10 Things I Hate About You. I still like hearing stories from my mom about the good moments when she was married to my dad, even years after he passed away. I still smile when I see my close friends happy with their partners. I still get giddy when a cute guy looks my way. I look up at the same sky and wonder if my soulmate is looking up too. I’ve entertained the idea of giving up before, and to be quite frank, I put on this role that I hate Love, and I’ve given up on cupid. I pretend that my personal cupid lost his GPS towards my soulmate, or maybe he died on the way to him. I entertain it after every rejection, only to find myself craving the feeling again. I don’t know when I’m going to find Love. I don’t know if it’s a day from now, hell, years from now. To be fair, I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I couldn’t give a damn for Love long last. I offer a damn about Love in the present. I don’t care about all the times I’ve witnessed men who reek of alcohol and misery approach women hoping to have sex for the night, followed up with a hearty breakfast of regret in the morning. I don’t care about all the times I’ve sobbed on the floor over a guy who never had the brain cells to see how much I’m worth. Most importantly, I don’t care how many times I’ll witness modern romance plummet to the ground because of hookup culture or thousands of different names for things besides the term “relationship.” I know Love is true. I’ve felt it. I feel it when my eyes widen at every red and orange tree I see in the Fall. I feel it when I find a new coffee shop. I feel it when I laugh with my friends. I feel it when I hug my mom. I feel it when I hear a good song, even more, when I hear it for the first time. I feel it when I listen to Greta Van Fleet. I feel it when I drive alone, screaming lyrics for only me and the artist stuck in the music box to hear. I feel it when I lay on my red swing in my childhood home, and it’s cold and cloudy. I feel it when my best friends tell me they love me. And if I feel it with the small things, one day I’m gonna feel it for the big stuff. One day a guy is going to look at me and think I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. He’ll smile as he holds me tightly but soft enough, so I don’t crumble. He’ll drive to see me just cause he can. He’ll pick up a batch of flowers at the grocery store cause he saw them on a dress I wore. He’ll laugh at my jokes, even when they’re not funny. He’ll kiss away my salty skin after wiping away my tears and tell me my puffy face is still pretty. He’ll apologize, honestly, when he does something wrong. He’ll love me ‘cause I’m human, with flaws as clear as day, and he’ll love me more. And I’ll feel it even more then.”

the tears won't stop.