I Could Write Pages And Pages, But I Run Out of Words When I’m Standing Before Him

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I guess what we fear most is never finding the right words to say, face-to-face. Unlike this blank interface, blank canvas, blank paper – whatever it is, it’s so easy to just let words flow. Words that convey what we feel, our deepest desires.

But sometimes you admit – you have grown a little too dependent on words. Sometimes, we’re like that. They say a broken heart makes the best writer.

You could write about him in pages, long run-on sentences, huge chunks of paragraphs but when it comes a time he stands before you – it’s as if you forgot how to speak.

As much as you value human interaction, you fear that one day you might look at the person you love in the eyes and stop short with words. Not because you don’t know what to say, but because you don’t know how.

You fear he finds your obsession with words and poems distasteful. What if he doesn’t like reading? What if doesn’t appreciate the poems you write?

For a person who loves to write and for someone who expresses herself best through words – What if he hates reading? Would that mean he’d never get to understand you? Would that mean that you would have to learn to express yourself differently? Through other mediums? It’s not that you were afraid of ‘trying something new’, writing to you is like that safety net you fall back to whenever something doesn’t work out. It’s your way out.

Perhaps, your only way.

You are afraid. Scared. Fearful, even. That he will look at your works and think they’re nothing but long-winded, narcissistic, whiny complaints that could have been shortened to a single sentence of no more than 5 words. You fear his imminent annoyance whenever you write about him, that the constant new post notification would irk him and he’d think “Why does she always have so much to say?”

You fear he’ll grow tired of your expressive writing habits, that those long handwritten cards and notes will no longer mean as much. That your seemingly overuse of figurative language would (really), one day be seen as merely figurative and not literal. That he’d grow lazy and bored of reading your beautifully-stringed flowery love letters, how his eyes would roll at the sight of a long message, only replying ‘mmhmm thanks love appreciate it,’ for the hundredth time, knowing full well that he probably didn’t bother reading the entire message.

But that’s the thing.

Sometimes, we have so many things to say when we write, but in front of the ones we love, we stop short with words.

You may unnecessarily string countless of synonyms and metaphors into a paragraph which simply says, “I love you.” You may constantly use analogies to hint at something you truly want to say instead of directly telling him how you feel. It’s not because you want to be annoying or hard to read – it’s because that’s the only way you know how.

Maybe, just maybe what we’re feeling is too complex for the simplicity of a single word to encapsulate. You run sentences and conversations in your head only for your voice to betray you.

And you fear that your way of saying I love you in long paragraphs is met only with irritation, coupled with a sigh, “here she goes again.”