love
to ben
Don’t be alarmed. This is not a letter confessing my undying love for you. (Although, I have considered writing that letter many times before.)
This is merely a letter of gratitude, of simple thanks. I’m quite certain that you are the only reason I still believe in fairy tales. In perfect endings, in true love. And most importantly, in happily ever after.
Not because you or I have achieved such lofty pursuits either together or apart. But because I can’t help but think, in some alternate universe, you and I found each other at the right time. When both our hearts were ready. And no one else was in between.
And so lived love as it was always meant to be. Without clauses or footnotes or asterisks. Without epitaphs and swan songs.
And if love like that can happen in some alternate universe, then it must exist. And if it exists, then I will never stop believing in it. Even if it’s not meant for me.
So thank you, Ben, for giving me love to always believe in.
your hipbones don’t impress me
I don’t need perfect. I don’t need chiseled abs and protruding hip bones. I don’t need a rigid jaw and teeth so white they sparkle. I don’t need six feet tall or bright blue eyes or sun-kissed skin or tight biceps and a tighter ass.
I just need a good sense a humor. An honest, thoughtful opinion. A strong mind. A passionate soul. A curiosity. A smile that turns the corners of my lips. A laugh that warms and swarms and melts. A heart that beats its own brilliant rhythm. And cannot wait for me to sing along.
Please just give me someone who doesn’t give up. Someone who doesn’t turn back. Someone who believes. And trusts. And dreams.
You can have yours tall and dark and handsome. I’ll take mine courageous and clever.
And he and I will be just fine.
the flesh is weak, but love is strong
i will stay where you are always
the bravest girl i ever knew
I still dream about you. Three and a half years later and you relentlessly haunt my sleep.
I used to wake up in agony from those dreams. Feeling pathetic and defeated and lost. But no longer.
I’ve finally accepted the fact that you will never leave me. Those six years we spent together – holding hands and rubbing noses and discovering each other and ourselves – those six years shaped who I am. Those six years altered who I’ve become.
It’s because I let you so deep inside me that I am forever changed by you. My soul. My spirit. The way I think. The way I feel. The way I love.
My dreams of you do not mean I long for you still. They mean I loved you with all I had. They mean I gave you every drop of me. They mean I held nothing back.
Sixty-three and a half years from now, should I still wake up with thoughts of you, I’ll be proud. Proud of how honestly I loved. How eagerly. How fearlessly.
That girl who loved you for six years was the bravest girl I ever knew.
faith > fried chicken
I have a tattoo on my ribcage. On the left side to be nearer to my heart. It says “Here is love vast as the ocean.”
The opening line from a hymn. A hymn about love.
Those seven words sum up all that I believe. Love is the core of it all. Even the good book itself says love is greater that hope or faith. And the stories written of our King are not of condemnation and judgment. They are of breaking bread with sinners and healing the lame and feeding the hungry and giving sight to the blind and casting out no one. And love. And love. And love.
Those red letters, all those precious words He spoke, they tell us to love.
I will not argue with you about Chick-Fil-A’s right to freedom of speech. I will not debate gay marriage. I will not discuss who should make up a family unit.
The reality is, I’m too busy loving all of God’s children. I do not have time to build walls around them. To isolate myself from them. To suggest they do not deserve what I have done nothing to earn.
Nor would I even want to.
Here is love vast as the ocean. Written on my ribcage. Written on my heart.
measure in love
the letter
Chloe: What did it say?
Me: That he hasn’t stopped thinking about that day.
Chloe: Who even sends letters anymore? That’s so World War II.
Me: That he closes his eyes and it’s like he can almost get back to it. That he goes home each day and locks himself in his room. Draws in the curtains, turns off the lights. Puts “Hear You Me” on repeat on his iPod. Lays down and just dwells in the memory of it.
Chloe: He sent a letter just to tell you that?
Me: He pulls the covers around his chin and one by one, he considers every detail. The torn booth at Waffle House. A waitress with a spider tattoo behind her ear. The smell of burnt coffee and cigarettes and butter and syrup. The long drive. My feet hanging out the passenger seat window. Mustard ballet flats and Jimmy Eat World. Running out of gas around three in the morning. Sprinting hand in hand toward the nearest exit, laughing the whole way. The rain. The rain. The rain. The sting of the tall grass on our ankles. The heat rising off the wet asphalt. A red gas can and a six-pack. The long walk back to the truck. The sunrise over the ocean. The stillness of both of us in the sand. Side by side. Trying to figure out some way, any way, to keep the sun from rising. To keep the night from ending. To stay in that moment forever.
Chloe: I feel like he could have just called.
Me: He said he’s scarred from it. Marred by the flawlessness of it all. He’s terrified nothing will ever compare. That will always be the best there ever was. He doesn’t know how to move past it. He’s not sure he really wants to.
Chloe: Are you going to write back?
Me: Yeah, I guess I will.
Chloe: What are you going to say?
Me: I’ll ask which scares him more, ruining the most perfect thing that has ever happened to him or never knowing if something that great could be even better.
Chloe: That’s it?
Me: Yeah, that’s it.
Chloe: You should probably just send a text.
a straight line is not the answer
The shortest distance between two points
is irrelevant.
Because if I am not next to you, any distance will feel like one million miles.
And every minute will feel like forever.
writeamuck 