I.

I’m not as strong when it comes to you. Yes, I’m strong. Yes, I can stand up for myself. Yes, the night we met, I held you at arm’s length. “I won’t go home with you,” I had said, words thick with liquor. And you just smiled and kissed me on the forehead. A phone number was enough.

Little did you know, that kiss told me everything. Little did you know, as I walked away, I was already holding my breath, waiting for your text.

So yes, I can put up a front, but when it comes to you, there’s an itty bitty weakness in both my knees and my heart.

II.

I’m scared to get too close.
I’m scared of the way you kiss me.
I’m scared of how you hold my hand with such gentleness, it feels like coming home.

I’m scared of the way you’ve pulled me into your world, sewing me into your stitching—seamless.

III.

I wrote about you. Once or twice or maybe even a third time, each word so effortless it felt like an extension of me. See, I want to share these words with you. I want to see the expression change on your face. I want to read your heart through the knitting of your eyebrows, through the silent touch of your hand intertwining with mine.

I told you these words exist. I told you that they’re floating on a page somewhere in cyberspace—reprinted from the folds of my mind. But I’m worried it might be too soon, that it might scare you away, that the sounds we share through our lips carry less permanence than the ones on a page.

And so I keep these written words close, but far from you.
Maybe there they’ll be safe. For now.

IV.

I keep making excuses, keep giving myself reasons why we won’t quite work out. I keep telling myself that this whole thing will fade and fall into nothingness. Maybe because I’m nervous. Maybe because it all feels too good to be true. Maybe because I’m so damn good at sabotaging what I can’t control.

Or maybe, because I’m scared of how wild my heart beats for you.

V.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, I wonder where you are or if you’re thinking of me. And is that silly, or are you doing the same?

VI.

I asked you a question that slipped into my mind unconsciously. It was too soon, too much. I bit my lip in the darkness, waiting for your reply, but instead of avoiding it, you answered. You answered honestly. And suddenly my mind was floating to all these faraway places, all these future possibilities, not so far out of reach.

And what if it could be? What if the thing I asked could be true?
What would it be like to be a forever us?

VII.

Just so you know, when I don’t text you back right away, it’s because I don’t want to seem too eager. Just so you know, I always lose that battle with myself and text you far sooner than I should.

VIII.

I joke and say I like you more, but I’m starting to think it’s actually true.
And for once, that doesn’t make me feel tired.
I’m more awake than I’ve ever been.

IX.

When it’s late at night and I’m trying to fall asleep without your warm body next to me, I wonder if there will ever be a time where we drift to the sound of one another’s breathing, and whether if I would be happy there.

And when I wake and you’re the first thought that crosses my mind,
I can almost say for certain that I would.