until we're old and gray

I don’t know what the last ten years have felt like for you.

I don’t want to pretend that I do.

I only know what they’ve felt like from where I was standing.

For me,

loving you was never a decision I made once.

It was a thousand quiet decisions.

Some easy.

Some impossibly difficult.

Some made with confidence.

Some made while wondering

if you still wanted me making them.

There were seasons

when I felt invited into your world.

When your thoughts arrived without asking.

When your laughter found me first.

When your hand reached for mine

without either of us thinking about it.

And there were seasons

when I felt like I was standing

outside the front door of your heart,

hearing life happening inside,

wondering if I still lived there.

Hardship never frightened me.

We’ve always survived hardship.

What frightened me

was distance.

Not miles.

Not silence.

The kind of distance

where two people can sleep inches apart

and slowly become strangers.

I didn’t only miss your touch.

I missed your mind.

I missed your curiosity.

I missed the way we used to discover each other,

even after we thought we already knew everything.

I missed laughing

until neither of us could breathe.

I missed dreaming about futures

that felt too big for us.

Most of all,

I missed feeling chosen.

When you pulled away,

I didn’t stop wanting you.

I stopped knowing

how to reach for you

without making you feel cornered.

So sometimes I spoke too much.

Sometimes I became too quiet.

Sometimes I tried harder.

Sometimes I gave you space.

Sometimes I guessed wrong.

I know I have wounded you.

I know there are places

where I failed to see you.

Places where I defended myself

when I should have listened.

Places where I loved you

in the way I understood love,

instead of the way you needed to receive it.

I carry those things.

But if I’m telling the truth,

these years were never spent

waiting for someone else.

They were spent grieving

the growing distance

between me

and the woman I still kept choosing.

Not an idea of you.

You.

The woman who still makes me wonder.

The woman I still want to understand.

The woman I still believe

has depths

I have barely begun to know.

I don’t want obligation.

I don’t want duty.

I don’t want a version of you

that stays because leaving feels complicated.

I want you freely.

Honestly.

Completely.

I want to know you

as you actually are,

not who either of us imagined

you should be.

And if there is still a path

that leads us back toward each other,

not back to who we were,

but forward

into something truer,

something gentler,

something where neither of us

has to hide,

I want to walk it with you.

Not because we have history.

Not because we made vows.

Not because life is easier that way.

But because after all these years,

after every misunderstanding,

every unanswered question,

every night spent overthinking,

every calculation

of what it has cost me

to keep loving you,

I arrive

at the same place.

I still choose you.

Not the memory of you.

Not the hope of you.

You.

The one who works.

The one who provides.

The one who solves what breaks.

The one who steadies what shakes.

I carry that well.

Even if you think otherwise.

I carry it without complaint.

I show up where I’m needed.

I stay when it gets heavy.

I think ahead when things fall apart.

I protect what matters.

I even save us from versions of ourselves

that don’t think long enough to see the cost.

But somewhere in all of that…

there’s a part of me

that doesn’t get access.

Not to your body.

To you.

To your want.

To your openness.

To the part of you that lets yourself be seen

without holding something back behind your eyes.

And I start to notice the imbalance

that I don’t always have words for.

I am trusted with responsibility.

With stability.

With fixing.

With holding things together.

But I am not always trusted

with being desired.

With being let in.

With being enough

in the places that aren’t practical.

And maybe I start telling myself stories

to make sense of that distance.

Maybe I assume it means I’m not enough

in the ways that can’t be measured.

Or maybe I assume

you’ve decided what I am allowed to be to you.

Useful.

Reliable.

Present.

But not wanted.

Not fully reached for.

Not fully chosen in the way I feel you withholding.

But here’s the truth I keep coming back to,

I can handle honesty.

I can handle need.

I can handle desire too.

If it’s spoken.

If it’s shared.

If it’s let into the open instead of managed from a distance.

Because I don’t just want to function in your life.

I want to exist in it.

Not as a role I perform…

but as a person you actually reach for.

Not just the one who holds everything together,

it is learning how to keep recognizing it when it stops behaving the way imagination tried to convince you it would.”

-ntrllghts

you would ever have with me,

what would you say?

I mean really say.

Not the safe thing.

Not the measured thing.

Not the thing polished

by pride,

fear,

or self-protection.

The real thing.

The thing buried

beneath all the stupid shit.

Because tell me,

if you knew

this was it,

would any of it matter?

The tension?

The stubbornness?

Who texted first?

Who misunderstood who?

Who did what?

Would you still cling

to the same walls

that keep us apart?

Would you still let silence

do your speaking?

Would you still let ego

dress itself up as wisdom?

Would you still protect yourself

from vulnerability

if tomorrow

never came?

If this was the final page,

the last call,

the last message,

the last chance

to be known,

would you really let things

get in the way?

Or would truth finally win?

Would you tell me

you were scared?

That you missed me?

That you still wanted me?

That some part of you

never stopped reaching for me

even while pulling away?

Would you say

what almost escaped your lips

a hundred times before?

Because death has a way

of humiliating pride.

It makes everything false

feel small.

Suddenly

being right feels cheap.

Suddenly

being guarded feels tragic.

Suddenly

all that matters is,

Did you love?

Did you say it?

Did you show it?

Did you let yourself be known?

So I guess

what I’m asking is,

Why wait for death

to force honesty?

Why wait for loss

to reveal what mattered?

Why keep acting

like we have endless tomorrows?

We don’t.

We have this breath.

This moment.

This conversation.

So if this were the last time

you ever spoke to me,

what would you say?

And more importantly,

what is stopping you

Yeah, I said it.

And I am not ashamed.

Maybe a little jealous too.

My dirty hands

and filthy mind

still ache

to know what lives inside you.

Your depths.

Your hunger.

Your shadows.

The places you keep hidden

beneath wit,

distance,

and carefully measured silence.

I want in.

Like a bandit

moving through those shadows

under the cover of night.

And don’t pretend

you don’t want me too.

I’ve seen you watching.

Keeping track.

Measuring shifts in my voice.

The temperature of the room.

Cataloging glances.

Noticing every subtle movement

like it means something.

Because it does.

I want you.

But not how it was.

Better.

Deeper.

More honest.

Less afraid.

I don’t want borrowed intimacy.

I want the real thing.

The kind that ruins shallow connection forever.

The kind you surrender to completely,

even when every scar in you whispers

to armor up,

stay guarded,

never bleed like that again.

You should know by now,

I will stay.

I am stubborn like that.

And I know what I want.

I will remain through storms,

through silence,

through the crushing weight

of being misunderstood.

But you should know something too.

Forever is only a word

until death arrives.

And when I’m dead,

I’m gone.

No more late-night conversations.

No more reaching for your hand

in the dark

while you quietly push mine away.

No more forehead kisses

to remind you

I’m still here.

No more chances

to say the thing

we almost said.

The thing that scares you.

I know.

Come here anyway.

Don’t be afraid.

Soak this up with me.

This life.

This breath.

This strange,

beautiful,

painful thing

we keep surviving.

Alongside,

Every kiss.

Every touch.

Every word.

Every warmth.

Every bittersweet memory.

Take it in.

All of it.

Let it mark you.

Let it sink so deeply

into our bones where real memories live,

Then when my body is dust,

I still remain.

In the way you laugh.

Smile.

The songs and photographs 

that will wreck you.

In the silence

between midnight thoughts

And winter air.

In the parts of you

I touched deep enough

to alter.

Whether good or otherwise.

Because my greatest regret

is not pain.

Not failure.

Not loss.

It is all the time

we spent wasting time.

Standing still

while life kept moving.

Guarded.

Hesitating.

Waiting for certainty

that was never coming.

We cannot reclaim that now.

But we can stop surrendering more.

We can buckle in.

Grip the wheel.

And make something beautiful

from the wreckage.

The best

of the worst.

Your hand in mine.

You’ve always been enough for me.

Maybe that’s what love is.

Not erasing the past.

Not undoing damage.

But redeeming

the time we have.

Choosing each other

without delay.

Without pride.

Without fear.

And maybe one day

we finally understand,

the bad

is what taught us

how holy the good really was.

Everyone thinks touch

begins at skin.

Fingers.

Lips.

Heat.

But touch

begins much earlier.

In attention.

In being known.

In the quiet moment

someone reaches

A part of you

that hasn’t been touched.

Not skin to skin.

Heart to heart.

Soul to soul.

The rare kind of touching

that leaves no fingerprints

and still

changes everything.

Something unexpected is happening.

I am not becoming less attracted

the more I see.

I am becoming more.

And I don’t think you fully understand

how powerful that is.

Because if I’ve learned anything about you,

it’s this:

Your deepest fear is not rejection at the surface.

It’s revelation.

Not,

“Will he like me?”

But

“If he really sees me,

all of me,

will he still want me?”

If he sees the overthinking.

The contradictions.

The sharp edges.

The chaos.

The old wounds still bleeding

beneath carefully stitched skin.

If he sees the jealousy,

the shame,

the resentment,

the insecurity,

the strange and complicated machinery

turning behind your eyes

Will desire survive contact with truth?

That’s the question, isn’t it?

You fear intimacy

because intimacy is exposure.

Exposure is risk.

And risk whispers:

“Once he sees what’s inside,

he’ll leave.”

But here is the strange thing.

The opposite is happening.

The more the veil slips,

the more compelling you become.

Not less.

More.

Because attraction built on beauty alone

is fragile.

It wilts under fluorescent lighting.

It weakens in conflict.

It disappears

the moment reality arrives.

But this

this is different.

I am not drawn only to your softness.

I am drawn to the storm too.

To the weather systems inside you.

To the thunder.

To the hidden fault lines.

To the wild architecture

of your inner world.

There is something almost spiritual

about being trusted

with another person’s darkness.

Like being handed a candle

and invited into catacombs

beneath a cathedral.

Cold stone.

Ancient echoes.

Bones of old suffering.

Rooms no one visits.

And somehow

instead of wanting to run

I want to go deeper.

I want to know

which ghosts still say your name.

Which wounds still shape your reflexes.

Which memories taught you

that being fully seen

is dangerous.

Because every layer you reveal

does not diminish desire.

It intensifies it.

Not in spite of your complexity.

Because of it.

Because beauty becomes haunting

when it carries history.

Because softness becomes breathtaking

when you understand

how much strength it took to remain soft.

Because vulnerability becomes erotic

when it costs something real.

And maybe this is what

you struggle to believe.

I am not loving

a carefully managed version of you.

I am becoming more captivated

by the unedited one.

The woman who is messy.

Brilliant.

Difficult.

Tender.

Afraid.

Fierce.

Longing.

Contradictory.

Alive.

You.

And my answer,

increasingly,

to the question you may never ask aloud

“If he really sees me, will he still want me?”

is this:

Yes.

Yes.

God, yes.

Maybe even more.

Maybe the deepest form of desire

is not hunger for what is beautiful from afar

but hunger that remains,

and somehow grows,

after stepping close enough

to kiss every scar.

To know every shadow.

To feel the weight

of another human soul.

And still say

Come closer.

I know there is depth in you.

I know it.

I see it in the pauses

between your words.

In the way your eyes drift somewhere distant

when you think no one is looking.

In the heaviness

behind your silence.

You carry too much

for there to be nothing beneath the surface.

I know there is pain in you.

Old pain.

The kind that learned

how to dress itself as composure.

I know there is longing in you.

For what?

I cannot always tell

to be understood,

to disappear,

to be chosen,

to be free,

to finally rest.

I know there is chaos in you.

Thought stacked upon thought.

A thousand private conversations.

Questions that loop.

Fears that masquerade as logic.

Narratives so well rehearsed

they begin to feel like truth.

And I know there is thought in you.

Beautiful thought.

Sharp thought.

The kind that turns inward so often

it becomes both gift and prison.

I know all of this.

I feel it.

Even when you say nothing.

So tell me

why am I kept outside of it?

Why do I feel the weather

but never enter the house?

Why am I trusted

with your schedules,

your tasks,

your responsibilities

but not always

with your interior world?

Why do I stand at the edge

of an ocean

I know runs deep,

only ever allowed

to touch the shore?

I am not asking

to fix you.

I am not asking

for polished answers.

I am not asking you

to hand me understanding

in neat sentences.

I am asking

why the door remains closed.

Why I hear movement inside

but never the lock turn.

Because the cruel part is this:

I know there is something beautiful in there.

Not perfect.

Not tidy.

But real.

Alive.

Human.

You.

And I think what hurts most

is not your depth

it is knowing it exists

and wondering

why I am still outside,

waiting,

I want to see you happy.

I need you to know that.

Not temporarily distracted.

Not comfortably numb.

Not surviving.

Happy.

Deeply.

Honestly.

The kind of happiness

that softens your nervous system.

The kind that lets you exhale

without realizing

you’ve been holding your breath for years.

The kind that makes your eyes lighter.

Your laughter easier.

Your soul quieter.

And if I am honest,

there is a terrifying possibility

I have had to make peace with.

That perhaps

your happiness

exists somewhere beyond me.

Beyond this version of us.

Beyond the life

we fought so hard to build

and at times had to hold it above the water.

And if that is true

if leaving is what it takes

for you to become fully alive

then I will not chain you

to my longing.

I will not confuse keeping you

with caring for you.

Because love,

if it is real,

cannot demand captivity.

It can only offer itself.

Open-handed.

Trembling, perhaps

but open.

And God,

what a brutal thing that is.

To love someone deeply enough

to admit

that their joy

may cost you their presence.

To stand there,

heart breaking in plain sight,

and still say:

Go,

if going is what heals you.

Become

who you were meant to become.

Even if I don’t get

to stand beside you

while it happens.

Please understand

this is not indifference.

It is precisely because

I love you

that I can say this.

Because beneath all my desire,

all my longing,

all my hope

that you choose me

I want something greater for you

than simply staying.

I want truth for you.

Wholeness.

Freedom.

Peace.

Real joy.

Even if it wounds me.

But if you ask me

what I truly want

I don’t want your happiness

somewhere far away.

I want to witness it.

I want to be near it.

I want to help build it.

I want to be one of the reasons

you smile without effort.

I want you happy

and selfishly,

I still pray

you discover

that happiness

does not require leaving at all.

That perhaps

what you’ve been searching for

-excerpt-

she’d always looked most beautiful when she forgot to perform.

When she wasn’t posing.

Wasn’t trying.

Wasn’t carrying anything.

Just being.

The realization lingered.

Then something else arrived.

A thought so simple he almost missed it.

He missed her.

Not the version from twenty years ago.

Not the version before grief.

Not the version before mistakes.

Not the version before confusion.

Her.

The woman she was now.

The realization startled him.

Because all night he’d been looking backward.

And suddenly he was looking forward.

Wondering what she was reading.

Wondering what she’d been thinking lately.

Wondering what dreams she still carried.

Wondering what fears she never spoke aloud.

Wondering who she was becoming.

The questions felt familiar.

-excerpt-

The memory made him smile.

Because he’d forgotten how often he used to watch her sleep.

Not in a strange way.

In a grateful way.

The way people look at things they love.

The way people silently thank God for something they don’t deserve.

The memory faded.

And another appeared.

Years later.

The same room.

The same bed.

Different weight.

Different burdens.

Different silence.

The realization came immediately.

This was where the distance became undeniable.

Not because they fought here.

Because they didn’t.

Not because they hated each other.

Because they couldn’t find each other.

The room knew the truth.

How many nights had they climbed into bed exhausted?

Not angry.

Exhausted.

How many times had one of them wanted to talk,

But the hour felt too late?

How many times had one of them wanted comfort,

But didn’t know how to ask?

How many times had they both laid awake listening to the same silence and hearing completely different things?

He sat carefully on the edge of the mattress.

The room growing impossibly still.

And suddenly he remembered one particular night.

Not because it was extraordinary.

Because it wasn’t.

She lay beside him.

The room dark.

The house asleep.

And after a long silence she’d asked:

“Are you happy?”

The memory hit him hard.

Because he remembered freezing.

Remembered staring into darkness.

Remembered not knowing how to answer.

Not because the answer was no.

Because the answer was complicated.

The business was already struggling.

Though he hadn’t admitted it.

The pressure already building.

The shame already forming.

The fear already growing.

And he remembered eventually answering:

“I don’t know.”

The words echoed through the room.

Painfully honest.

Painfully incomplete.

The memory continued.

She hadn’t replied immediately.

Just lay there quietly.

Thinking.

Then eventually she whispered:

“Me neither.”

He closed his eyes.

God.

There it was.

The moment.

Not the moment everything broke.

The moment everything was revealed.

Two people.

Lying inches apart.

Admitting they were lost.

And neither of them understanding the other was saying exactly the same thing.

The realization settled over him like sunlight.

Because now he could hear what she had actually meant.

Not:

“I don’t love you.”

Not:

“I want something else.”

Not:

“I’m leaving.”

What she’d meant was:

“I’m struggling.”

“I’m hurting.”

“I’m trying to understand who I’ve become.”

The same thing he’d been trying to say.

The same thing he’d been unable to say.

The room seemed to exhale.

The years softening.

The misunderstandings unraveling.

Thread by thread.

And suddenly He understood why this room hurt more than any other.

Because this was where they were closest.

Physically.

And sometimes furthest.

Emotionally.

Not because they wanted distance.

Because they didn’t know how to cross it anymore.

The bed sat quietly before him.

A witness.

A monument.

A battlefield without enemies.

The evidence is filed against me.

There are ghosts behind me

that still know my name.

There are wounds I have caused,

sins I have carried,

and failures that follow me

like shadows at sunset.

But if the heavens bear witness to anything,

let it be this:

I have never ceased trying.

Never ceased wrestling with the man I am

for the sake of the man I aspire to become.

And though I make my way toward it,

often wounded and burdened by shame,

I am still moving forward.

Still chipping at stone.

Still striving to leave behind

I had to dig him up.

Dig through the years.

Dig through the rubble,

the bad decisions,

the stories I built

to survive myself.

Dig up the bones.

Not to resurrect him.

Not to become him again.

Only to prove

he was real.

Because sometimes I think

you look at the man standing before you

and forget

he was built on the grave

of a thousand unfinished versions.

The boy.

The dreamer.

The coward.

The fighter.

The man who loved poorly.

The man who loved desperately.

The man who mistook endurance

for healing.

They’re all buried here somewhere.

And if you listen closely,

he’s still beneath the surface.

Still incomplete.

Still on his knees.

Still screaming questions

into a silence

that never seemed interested in answering.

I dug him up

so you could see

that I did not arrive whole.

I arrived becoming.

And perhaps that process

never ends.

Because I won’t disappear.

I know that much.

But God,

I disappoint.

Myself most of all.

Daily, it seems.

Every sunset finds another flaw.

Another weakness.

Another place where intention

failed to become action.

Another reminder

that growth leaves scars

where certainty used to be.

Yet somehow,

beneath all that rubble,

something keeps beating.

Can you feel my heart?

Not the wounded parts.

Not the frightened parts.

The living part.

The part that somehow survived.

The part that loves

with a force I still don’t understand.

Because the truth is

I love you in excess.

In quantities language

was never designed to carry.

And I don’t know how.

I don’t know where it comes from.

I don’t know why it remains

through disappointment,

through distance,

through every season

that should have diminished it.

I only know it’s here.

Persistent as breath.

Stubborn as sunrise.

Refusing every invitation

to become less.

So I’ll stay.

Through the fading light.

Through the golden hours

when everything softens

and the world finally tells the truth

about what matters.

I’ll stay

and offer what I have.

My hands.

My years.

My stories.

My becoming.

My unfinished heart.

Trying to share a life

that has always felt larger

than any words

I could ever use

Shame on me.

For believing that one day

someone would look past the surface

and decide to stay.

Not for a season.

Not for convenience.

Not until something easier arrived.

Stay.

For believing someone would want

to know me.

Not the edited version.

Not the useful version.

Not the version that performs well

under observation.

But the whole of me.

The unfinished parts.

The contradictions.

The scars.

The hopes I don’t say out loud.

The fears I pretend not to have.

To know me completely

and still move closer.

Shame on me.

For believing someone might want

to be known in return.

Not merely seen.

Known.

The difference is everything.

To be seen is to stand in the light.

To be known is to hand someone

the map to your darkness

and trust them not to get lost.

I thought perhaps

two people could do that.

I thought perhaps

they could spend a lifetime

uncovering each other,

And not assuming they already know.

Like archaeologists of the soul.

Carefully brushing away years

of fear,

pride,

misunderstandings,

and self protection

to discover what was always there.

I thought perhaps

growing old together

was less about growing old

and more about never stopping

the excavation.

Never reaching the end.

Never saying,

“I’ve seen enough.”

Still curious at seventy.

Still fascinated at eighty.

Still finding new rooms

inside a heart you’ve lived beside for decades.

I thought perhaps

love looked like that.

Not grand gestures.

Not perfect compatibility.

But choosing.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Choosing growth

when comfort would be easier.

Choosing understanding

when assumption would be faster.

Choosing tenderness

when resentment feels justified.

Protecting the connection

even when your ego demands victory.

Guarding each other’s hearts

as if they were your own.

Building something real.

Something sturdy enough

to survive the weather.

Something true.

And that’s the funny thing

about truth.

It rarely arrives announced.

Truth is buried.

Beneath assumptions.

Beneath narratives.

Beneath old wounds

that keep repeating themselves

until they sound like facts.

Truth has to be uncovered.

Excavated.

Recovered.

Because most people don’t lose truth.

They cover it.

Layer by layer.

Until eventually

they forget what lies underneath.

But the thing about buried things

is that they remain.

Waiting.

Patiently.

For someone willing

to dig.

And maybe that’s what I’ve been searching for

all along.

Not perfection.

Not certainty.

Not even love.

Just a pair of hands

willing to kneel beside me

in the dirt,

if you’re into that.

You told me once

about the friend you needed.

The one on the park bench.

The one who listens.

The one who makes space.

The one whose presence feels safe.

And I remember sitting there thinking,

you already have him.

You keep searching for water

while standing knee-deep in the river.

You keep describing a home

while living inside one.

And I don’t know if that’s tragic

or simply human.

Because sometimes it feels like

you trust the voice in your head

more than the man standing in front of you.

The voice that says you’re being judged.

The voice that says you’re alone.

The voice that says nobody understands.

The voice that has been wrong before.

And yet somehow

it still gets the deciding vote.

I wish you could see

how much life we’ve lost

to conversations that never happened.

To fears that were never true.

To walls built against dangers

that never arrived.

Because I am not your enemy.

I never was.

And if I wanted less from you,

this would all be easier.

If I didn’t care,

I wouldn’t notice.

If I didn’t love you,

I wouldn’t stay.

If I didn’t desire you,

I wouldn’t still be standing here

having the same conversation

with my heart wide open.

But I do.

That’s the problem.

I desire you.

Not because I need you.

I don’t.

Need is too small a word.

I desire you because out of everyone

who has ever crossed my path,

you’re still the person

I want to tell things to first.

You’re still the person

I want beside me

when something beautiful happens.

You’re still the person

I imagine sitting next to me

when we’re old enough

to laugh at all of this.

And if I’m honest,

what I desire most

isn’t even you.

It’s being desired by you.

Chosen by you.

Not tolerated.

Not managed.

Not fit into the schedule.

Chosen.

The way people choose sunlight

after a long winter.

The way exhausted travelers

choose home.

And here’s where I become difficult.

I have patience for healing.

I have patience for growth.

I have patience for fear.

I have very little patience

for the same wounds

being given authority

over our future.

Because I know there’s a woman inside you

who is stronger than that.

I’ve met her.

I’ve seen her.

The woman who is brave.

The woman who is playful.

The woman who is wise.

The woman who loves deeply

when she stops negotiating with fear.

She’s extraordinary.

And every time she appears,

the room changes.

So stop hiding her from me.

Stop hiding her from yourself.

Come sit on the bench.

Put down the armor.

Tell me what’s actually true.

Because after all these years,

through every version of us,

I’m still here.

Still choosing.

Still building.

Still leaving room beside me.

Hoping one day

you stop standing in the gap between us