Don’t Tell Me You Love Me

Paolo Raeli
Paolo Raeli

Don’t tell me you love me. Not when we’re quiet and tangled in bed sheets, not in the shadow of a porch light, and not in a silent car on the highway.

I want you to scream it. I want you to shout it from the open windows of your second floor bedroom. I want you to yell it at random strangers at the street. I want you to write it on your heart like a tattoo, sharp and permanent.

I want the world to know, in all the ways—in the smile on your face, the skip in your step, the way your eyes brighten when I walk in the room, the way you drunkenly gush about me in the bar on a Friday night—all the louds and softs.

Don’t tell me you love me. But show me. In the way you reach for me, hold my hand, kiss me good morning, run your fingers across my back when I’m tired. In the way your body bends towards mine when we’re kissing, sleeping, laughing. In the way your eyes travel over my body, stare into my eyes. In the way you carefully pick through the layers of my mind.

I want to know your love naturally, inherently, embedded into every fiber and cell and ribbon of thought. I want to fall into your love like a sigh, eyes closed, body relaxed, the absence of fear. So please don’t tell me you love me, but yell it, scream it, embody it, become it.

I want to get lost in you. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Marisa is a writer, poet, & editor. She is the author of Somewhere On A Highway, a poetry collection on self-discovery, growth, love, loss and the challenges of becoming.

Keep up with Marisa on Instagram, Twitter, Amazon and marisadonnelly.com

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