My True Love Will Be Ugly

By

 

My true love will not be sweet. It won’t be pretty, it won’t be pleasant. It’ll be unattractive and full of flaws. Disasters and mishaps. Yes, my true love.

Messy, sloppy, drunken make out sessions. Waking up in each other’s arms with an empty pizza box in bed. Crumbs in the sheets and all. The smell of BO from passing out without showering. Breath reeking of liquor. We don’t care. More kisses, more morning kisses.

Sore, blistered feet from breaking it down on the dance floor the night before. It was NOT pretty. Dropping it low (him, not me) and the “running man” (me, not him). Using our beer bottles as microphones as we shriek the wrong lyrics…possibly to the wrong song. Everyone stares. He contemplates giving me a lift onto the pool table.

My true love will consist of “shoulds”. Should I do this? Should he do that? Should we be doing things differently? But the truth is that we’ll have our own way of going about everything as it comes. And in the end, the “shoulds” will be replaced with “coulds”. I could cook him breakfast even though I may set the apartment on fire. He could surprise me with tacos after a long day at work. Shit, should our relationship revolve around food? Eh, why not- it could.

My true love will be full of terrible photographs. Candids of us making ridiculous faces at each other. Even an action shot of me bitching at him over God knows what. Selfies of us sticking out our tongues. Pictures with gorgeous scenery ruined by me tripping over my heels and falling into him. Cringe-worthy photos to hang on our fridge.

Brutal honestly.
“Yes, you do look fat in that.”
“No, you cannot wear that hat to meet my parents.”
“You need a haircut, you look like trash.”
“I look like trash? You smell like trash, take a shower.”
Too much honesty for our own good, but we’ll appreciate it and laugh later. MUCH later. My true love will be brutally honest.

My snot filled tissues everywhere. All over our bed. Actually, on his side more than mine. I’m sick and he’s heating up soup for me. Sounds sweet, right? He tries to spoon feed me and I sneeze into the bowl, splashing the soup all over his and my face. More his face than mine. He takes a deep breath and grabs a paper towel to clean up the mess, then kisses my dry, crackled lips. I tell him he’ll regret that.

He does regret that. Two days later I am cured, but I am making soup for him as he throws snot filled tissues all over our bed. I tell him that I refuse to kiss him. He settles for a striptease. I warn him that I haven’t shaved my legs in weeks. He says he doesn’t care. The sad truth is, he really doesn’t.

Screaming. At the top of my lungs. I can’t even remember what he did to get me so angry, but now I’m screaming so loudly that he closes our windows in hopes that the neighbors don’t call the cops. His temper isn’t like mine, but now I’ve got him riled up. He brings up an argument from three weeks ago, and now I grab a plate from the cabinet to throw at him. He knows my plan as I reach, so he pulls the plate from my hands and places it on the countertop. Our bodies are close to each other now. He looks into my eyes as I look into his. The anger is gone. Or is it? He picks me up, tosses me onto the bed, and here comes the mind-blowing make-up sex. Somehow everything is forgotten.

So this is a reminder to myself: When you finally encounter love, let it be ugly. Embrace everything that goes wrong, that goes unplanned. Because it is those moments, those elements, that really make love true.