A Love Letter

"They say love is paradoxical to hate; one cannot exist without the other'. I am grateful for both. Here is my letter to a love I do not fully understand.

The first time you touched my lips; I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I was naive, perhaps too young to be desiring something so seemingly ‘grown up’.

I still remember the smell of you.

The second time, the rush of excitement coursed through my veins so fast that I had to get up and move around.

So, this is what it feels like. To be comforted. To be loved. Exhilaration.

Echoes of that first time still repeat on me now; the tingle on my lips, the taste of you both sweet and bitter. My thumping heart bringing awareness to all the veins and cells in my body. Flying. The static in my head clouds my vision, yet I have never seen so clearly.

A moment of stillness, silent but for my slow exhalation. Everything around me slackens to a standstill until it is only us. I breathe you in, eyes closed. Our secret solitude.

Suddenly, heat rises in my body and my heart pounds beyond control. This. Feels. Good. I feel unstoppable, raised from the dead by the sheer presence of you. 

The way you lift me up makes me feel like I could take on the world. I am more me when I am with you. I can climb higher, run faster, achieve more. Birdsong has more melody; the sun shines brighter in the sky.

People have told me to approach you with caution. Of course, you have a reputation. A heart-breaker, a trouble maker. I have been warned of the danger of loving you so.

The fall is greater than the high.

I didn’t understand them at first. I just wanted to bathe in you, soft and sweet.

And then, one day, it clicked. The sound of mug clattering against saucer made me fear for my life. Like the fine China broke in my ears, pale chalky shards scraping against one another with grit. And I understood.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t once felt on edge around you. Slightly unsure of your unpredictable nature. Is today a day that you’ll make me grin from ear to ear, or squash me under the weight of your expectation? Second guessing everything about myself.

I call it love but, how can it be?

I could be the best I’ve ever been or I could be morphed into a hyperventilating mess because this time, your affections were just too strong.

My excitement burns into anxiety and I realise I don’t quite know myself. I know the person you’ve made me, but without you, who am I? I feel sick at the thought, bloated and ugly.

I need a nervous wee.

You know full well that I’ve tried to cut you out of my life. Tried to become stronger than I am with you. But, in your absence my thoughts are consumed by you.

I am not interested in a life without you. But with you, I am so captivated I feel trapped.

How can someone so beautiful at once give me life and take it away before it has even grown cold?

They say love is paradoxical to hate; one cannot exist without the other. I don’t hate you. I hate that I need you.

I don’t desire a watered-down version of you. I want the you that understands me, who evolves with me and listens even when I have nothing to say.

You are the longest friendship I have ever had. The first one to hold my hand and show me the steps. What started as a romantic, low-lit sway, spun rapidly into a quick-step samba.

I still hold memories of that first time, romanticised thoughts on how it could be. I need someone to hold me, to guide me. No-one else makes me feel like you do. They don’t know the magic between us when we sit in a room full of people, yet we are entirely alone.

I need you.

I breathe you.

I am you.

I impatiently await the next time I can wrap my hands around you.

Mine.

There are worse things than Stockholm syndrome. There are drugs, abusers, alcoholics.

I have you. And I am grateful each day for the things I have learned from you. How to be motivated by another, how to use their strength as your own. How to find balance in protecting myself and letting you in just enough to keep us both satisfied. Wanting more.

This is my truth.

My love letter to you.

My coffee, my friend.