A Concise List Of Ways I Want To Be Loved

1. I want to be loved realistically – by someone who makes me simple promises they are capable of keeping – not to stay with me forever, but to be a welcome guest in my life, free to stay as long as we both willingly wish.

2. I want to be loved honestly – by someone who matches my intensity, not through mimicry or imitation, but by laughing uncontrollably and weeping openly with the same amount of candor.

3. I want to be loved tenderly – by lips that part not to speak, but to take my own between them and tell me the secret, heartfelt things for which there are no words; things that can only be said with a kiss.

4. I want to be loved hungrily – by desperate, needy hands; hands that are not focused on the physical reactions they produce throughout my body but are of aware of how each touch, each graze, each caress, makes me feel.

5. I want to be loved peacefully – by someone who recognizes beneath all the adrenaline, the arousal, the racing pulse, the electric current running from the navel down – a calm, quiet joy; the exhale, the relief that comes from not having to be anyone but yourself.

6. I want to be loved equally – by someone who knows how to take turns, not in the bedroom or when it’s time to pay the check, but when it comes time to be the caretaker or be taken care of, someone who has learned there is strength in vulnerability.

7. I want to be loved stubbornly – by someone who couldn’t deny it if they tried, not because they are too weak to let go, but because feelings are fickle friends who follow neither rhyme or reason, someone who simply loves me because they do.