You Deserve To Be Loved Openly

You deserved to be loved openly in Central Park on a warm summer’s day, cuddling on the grass and kissing or taking a stroll on the bridge in the way seemingly all couples in NYC do at some point.

You deserve to be loved publicly, with Instagram captions dripping with adoration and selfies filled with admiring comments below them.

You deserve to be loved in front of others, with your partner unafraid to hold your hand, bring you in for a hug, or lightly kiss you when the feeling strikes.

You deserve to be loved openly and not kept as a secret from family, friends, and acquaintances for fear of mockery, questions, or rebuttal from these groups.

You deserve to be loved for the totality of who you are—your snort laugh, your penchant for car karaoke, and your love of the same three dishes on a Chinese food menu included.

You deserve someone who supports your dreams, pushes you forward when you backpedal, and believes in you when you don’t believe in yourself.

You deserve someone who loves you in the light and the dark, who loves you every day of the week, not only on Saturday nights at 3 a.m. or when their parents aren’t home, and wants to have breakfast with you too.

You deserve someone who desires you in your exact form, with no changes requested, as they love you and your body just as they are.

You deserve someone who makes you feel beautiful every day, seeing it when you cannot for yourself.

You deserve someone from whom you can be independent , who doesn’t stir up feelings of codependency, and who lets you live your life without burdening you with unsolicited advice and suffocation.

You deserve someone who makes you laugh until your ribs hurt, until liquid comes violently squirting out of your nose, and until your guttural, loud laugh wakes up the neighbors.

You deserve someone who will share their playlists and hobbies with you and expose you to new music, art, culture, and ways of thinking without bashing what you like, and vice versa.

You deserve someone who will make you think of an artist, song, or location and remember all of the fond memories you’ve made with them.

You deserve someone who will pick out the food stuck in your teeth, lend you their part of the blanket, and get an extra set of sweatpants for you to wear when staying overnight.

You deserve someone who will acknowledge your traumas, sit with them, and help you lay the coping mechanisms you’ve built to rest.

You deserve someone who will assuage your fears of forever, as forever with them is your safety blanket.

You deserve someone whose family adores you and vice versa, who will make you glad that they made someone who makes you happy.

You deserve someone who loves you when times get tough, who acknowledges the whole spectrum of your feelings, and who will talk through things with you.

You deserve someone who is even-keeled emotionally, who will be kind, calm, and collected when needed, who will not use anger, manipulation, or dominance to win an argument or get their way.

You deserve someone who you can implicitly trust and can believe what they say is the truth.

You deserve to know that love can come in many forms, from many different sources.

You deserve to be loved by your friends, family, and others in life in unconditional, unabashed, fullness.

You deserve to know that you are always worthy of love, desire, and admiration.

You deserve to be loved openly.