Please be the one who stays.

I don’t want to go searching any longer. Maybe it is foolish to hope that anyone could remain forever, but I’d like it if you did. I’m tired of going through the same old motions over and over again only to find my heart crushed like dust under the heel of some thoughtless man, just like every other time before.

I want something that lasts. I’m ready to find my person and settle down into the love I’ve always imagined. Long nights spent in the comfort of each other’s arms. Quiet afternoons working side-by-side, taking brief but precious moments here and there to glance at one another and exchange knowing, easy smiles. Peals of laughter bouncing back from the cathedral ceilings of our shared space, filled with airy, transcendent sunbeams. Unexpected bursts of passion, blindly searching each other’s bodies, at once inherently familiar and yet oddly foreign. Contentment merged with adventure. Excitement, ease, and security wrapped up together in one beautiful partnership.

I want everything, and I want it with you.

It’s escaped me for so many years, this simple, sweet love, and now here it is presenting itself to me suddenly and I’m stricken with a strange, joyous fear. I had no idea how entrenched I was within the realm of doubtfulness, so much so that I struggle to grasp the fact that you actually enjoy me as greatly as I do you. If I spent this much time with another being, I’d attribute it to immaturity, a need or dependence, but not where you’re concerned. You simultaneously lift me and ground me. I feel as much myself with you as I do when I’m completely alone. That’s how I know I want you to stay.

So believe me when I tell you that I choose you to spend the day with me strolling hand-in-hand, peeking into mysteriously shadowy storefronts and sharing silly antidotes. I’ve never been so giddily happy doing nothing at all. The hours fly when you’re by my side, no matter how we use them.

I’m putty in your hands and liquid in your arms. Everything is different with you. My breath catches in my overwhelmed throat when I realize just how wonderfully distant this is from anything I’ve ever experienced.

I can’t make you stay. I would never try.

Still … I hope more than anything that you do.