I Love You (More)

I love you. The words roll off my tongue softly, like summer heat, like morning rain. I wonder how you hear them in your own mind. Do they sound as beautiful? Do they carry the same weight? Sometimes when I close my eyes, I hear you speaking those three words to me in the silence. Those are the words that carry me through, even when distance dances between us, even when the temporary nature of this world tugs at my heart.

I love you. Such a simple phrase, and yet, there is so much power. To love is to choose, is to promise. To love is to vow loyalty, to believe beyond a doubt that what we have is real and worth fighting for. Such strength carried in three words, eight letters.

I love you. Which is to say that I am sharing my soul with yours, hoping that you’ll be tender with the bruises, that you’ll accept the imperfection and mess I carry with me, that you’ll still hold me with patience even when we don’t agree.

I love you. Which is to say I want to pursue a life with you; I want to wake up every single morning to your face, fall asleep to the sound of your breathing. I want to spin through this life together, making our own melody and swaying our hips to the music, creating our own story from two converged volumes. And writing, reading, celebrating every page.

I love you. You speak those words to me, but how can I possibly convey the depth of my heart to you in return? The fact that I know, beyond a doubt, the pounding in my chest is yours and yours only? That I will spend all my days beating, believing, and breathing for you?

“I love you,” is simply not enough when every part of my soul dances at the mention of your name. So I don’t just love you. I love you more.

I love you more. Meaning everything that you are to me, I will return to you with even wilder tenacity. Meaning whatever I touch is yours, and I will promise this to you. Meaning for every beautiful word that leaves your lips, I will give back to you, syllables dripping with patience and truth. Meaning I am not afraid.

I love you more. Which is my way of conveying what can’t always be tangible or understood. Meaning those three words sometimes do not hold all of my passion for the person you are, and how I can’t wait to spend what’s left of my life with you.

I love you more. More than one would expect. More than is humanly possible. More than you love me, which is an imbalance that I am okay with. Because giving you all of me does not weaken my spirit, but strengthen. Because there is only room for us to grow, together. Because loving with any less than all of me would be a waste. Because you are mine, and I am not afraid to fall into that. To fall into you.

I love you more. Which is to say that we all have numbered days, but I want to spend my temporary forever standing next to you.