I Want To Take Things Slow With You

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not good at falling in love. Everything happens so quickly in my head; I get wrapped up in the emotions, and let my mind talk my heart into running wild. Maybe it’s the writer in me, but I start feeling poetry through my fingertips at the touch of your hand. Suddenly I notice myself leaning into you just a little more, smiling just a little brighter, turning my head just slightly towards yours or inching my hand just a little bit closer to yours on the couch. It’s subtle, at first. But then it happens quickly—the rush of my heartbeat, the excitement at your name.

I can’t help it. I’ve never been afraid of falling.

But with you, it’s different. I want to let go and feel things with you, but I want to be hesitant, too. I want to know that this is real with you. I want to be careful. I want to be patient. Because this matters. Because you matter.

Maybe in the past I’ve been too quick to let someone in. I don’t regret it, but maybe this time I want to do it right. Maybe this time I want to know all the layers of you, before allowing you to come into my life. Maybe I want to know what kind of person you’ll be when it gets tough, just so I won’t have to fight my battles alone. Maybe I want to know that you’ll fall too, and that I won’t be left standing with a bleeding heart in my hands, wondering where I went wrong.

I want to take things slow with you: laughter, dates, late nights spent talking, and parting ways with a simple kiss.

I don’t want our hands to get in the way of what our hearts are feeling. I want to speak with our mouths and not tongues, and with words, not kisses.

I don’t want to get lost in the taste of you; I want to get lost in your mind.

I want to know what you question, what you believe, what you think about when it’s 2AM and you should already be asleep. I want to know what makes your heart pound, your biggest regret, the darkest secret that you haven’t shared with anyone.

I want the privilege of knowing you, the real you. And I don’t want to rush that.

I want to be careful this time, taking slow steps, learning as much as I can before jumping in headfirst. I want to shut off my mind for a moment, control my heart and hold it back.

I want to discover what we could be before promising forever.

Not because I’ve been burned and I’m bitter, but because we both deserve real love, and a person who will be there to stay. And I can’t make promises when I don’t know where we are.

So please, take things slow with me. Be patient with my heart. Be tender. Let yourself fall slowly into me, and I’ll do the same. Don’t scare me with big dreams and plans too far down the road. Don’t burden me with too many emotions that I can’t handle just yet.

Let me in piece by piece, day by day, moment by moment. Let yourself open, and I’ll open alongside you. And maybe we won’t know where this is all going, but maybe that’s the best part.

We trust and we move forward, step by step, into love.

Marisa Donnelly is a poet and author of the book, Somewhere on a Highway, available here.