I like your vices. I like the roughness of your hands and the rawness of your heart. I like the madness that ignites inside your bloodstream and the chaos that encumbers your soul. I like the look in your eye when you are brooding. I like the taste of cigarettes when you kiss me.

I like that you’re too much for me sometimes. I like that you think too deeply and speak too quickly and indulge too often in the finer things in life. I like that no amount of living ever seems to be enough for you – that there’s always something new to do and someone new to meet and someplace new to explore and that your mind churns and reels in a never-ending storm of possibility. I like that you’re gluttonous and indulgent where others are stringent and measured. I like that you are alive in all of the ways other people are not.

I like your weaknesses. I like that you laugh too loudly and love too strongly and leave your wide-open heart out there for the world to uncover. I like that you are not afraid to take the chances that everyone else will not take, because you know that they are not going to destroy you. You know that you can stitch and nurse yourself tired heart back to health. In a world of cautious people, you are not afraid of being broken wide open.

I like your bluntness. I like that you aren’t scared to admit your own downfalls – that you’ll own your inadequacies, claim your immoralities and detail each of your vapid depravities. I like that I don’t have to feel sinful or corrupted alongside you because you can match each of my disgraces with your own. I like your rawness, your grittiness, your unpolished edges and your misshapen parts. I like that you know they can all coexist with your virtues – that your badness doesn’t drive out your light and that your vices do not make you immoral.

I like that you’re imperfect. I have met too many people who are polished, too many people who are faultless, too many people who have neatly wrapped their lives up to present upon a shining silver platter; boasting virtues and pointing out strengths. I like that you do not try to present yourself as idealized – that you’re openly sinful and tainted but you know you’re still worthy of devotion. I like that you know that you are incomplete, but that you’re still worthy of love.

I like your vices. I like the fervor of your spirit and the madness of your soul. I like your corruptions and calamities, your destruction and your disarray.

I like your vices because they neatly align with my own.

And I have no intention of abandoning mine anytime soon.