It will be hard to love me. I told you from the beginnings.

Let this be a warning.

It will be hard to love me because that beautiful smile that you like now will soon hold residue of salty tears when my demons come out and play. My demons don’t like child play. My demons like to throw fire and cause corruption. They like to break bonds and scare intruders.

It will be hard to love me because that wall that you have been trying to knock down for some time now will eventually come down. But when the wall comes down, it won’t be as spectacular as you envisioned. It will throw debris at you from every angle; and then you will choose whether to fight or run.

It will be hard to love me because those sweet words I murmur to you under my soft spoken breathe at two am will also occasionally spit rapid venom, seething into your bloodstream. The harsh words will crawl into the crevices between your bones, leaving you to think how such a girl could say all those cruel words in the heat of the moment.

It will be hard to love me because those hands you yearn to hold will sometimes not want to touch you. 

It will be hard to love me because that self-drive you admire will be washed away by all the stressors in life. And I will be left laying on my bed, gazing at the ceiling with a blank stare searching for a way to get out of bed. It will take some time to get my resilience back, but boy when I do, I will share some of it.

It will be hard to love me if you aren’t ready to love me.

It will be hard to love me because your heart didn’t have enough time to heal. Those holes may be mended, but the stitches that were there haven’t quite healed yet. There remains the residue of a messy past. And your stitches were okay at first. But there are times when they leak from all the pressure of us. And they leak. And leak. And leak. They leak into the present. They leak into the future. They leak into us and poison us.

It will be hard to love me because you still love what you had with her. She was easy, giddy, and open. And I’m difficult, mature, and closed. You are used to her. You are not used to me. But I am not her and she is not me. And that’s okay. You can always learn.

It will be hard to love me because she melted into your giving hands, seeping through your finger-tips. When the seeping through was done, and all you had to look at was the messy remains, she would repeat the process, continuously seeping. You love that. You love to be wanted and then not wanted. Wanted and then not wanted until you’re wanted again. But when I seep through your hands, I stick. I don’t seep through the cracks, rather I harden over them because I want to stay. It will be hard to love me because you are scared. You are scared of what was and what could be.

It will be worth loving me.

Let this be a warning.

I’ll push you. I’ll push you to do things you never thought you could accomplish. I’ll water you like the beautiful seed you are and watch you grow until you have nourished enough petals to be proud of. I’ll keep pushing you until you believe you are worth blooming into the person you have always wanted to be.

I’ll give you all of my pieces. I’ll give you all my pieces, because up until now, no one has been able to sweep them out from under me. I have felt hurt, pain, and suffering. But love. I haven’t felt that. I have one hundred percent of my pieces getting ready to burst and blow your way. Be ready to catch them.

I’ll annoy you in the best of ways. I’ll pick at the fuzz on your shirt and trace the lines that make up the shape of your hand. I’ll constantly intertwine my fingers in your hair and graze my bare feet against your legs. I’ll kiss you until my lips are red and cracked and whisper in your ear like were elementary schools kids sharing secrets. I’ll mean well when I do all of this.

I have already love you.

Let that be a warning.