Grab my hand and let’s run. Let’s go. Let’s laugh. Let’s believe. Let’s leave all our worries behind and step forward together. This life is too short. I don’t want to miss out on the maybe, on the possibility, on the chance of happiness with you. I don’t want to lie to my heart and pretend you don’t matter.

I don’t want to waste another minute not being yours.

Why is it that we lose so much time wondering, fearing, contemplating whether we should walk towards or away from one another? Who knows whether we will fail or make something beautiful? Who knows if we’re each other’s forevers, or just temporary loves? Who knows whether we’ll fight (we will) or if we’ll learn to stay, even in our toughest moments?

Who can tell where we’ll end up, a day, a month, a year down the road?

This life will throw us curveballs. We’ll have battles to face and mountains to climb. You’ll make mistakes. I’ll screw everything up. We’ll have days where we just want to scream and let go and run a hundred miles in the opposite direction. But let’s take that chance. Let’s be imperfect together.

Let’s acknowledge that we won’t always be selfless, that we won’t always put each other first, that we won’t make one another happy one hundred percent of the time. Let’s acknowledge that we are human. That sometimes we’ll say what we don’t mean or get a little too angry. That we’ll forget the promises we made to one another and raise our voices and stomp our feet and act so damn immature when we don’t get what we want.

Let’s acknowledge that we don’t know the road ahead, and as much as we try to think ourselves into the future, we can’t control what happens. We might crash, we might set fires, we might combust, but I’d rather find out what we become than always wonder, wouldn’t you?

I’d rather feel something real, follow my heart, fall into you.

Let’s be imperfect together. Let’s stop keeping a checklist of whether we’re ‘right’ for each other. Let’s stop listening to the cautionary voices of the world, saying that we’re young and dumb, that we’re silly and reckless, that we don’t know what we’re doing. Those people are just scared to feel.

Let’s stop searching for answers we won’t find unless we try. Let’s stop letting our fears control our minds and hearts.

Let’s be imperfect together. Let’s yell at each other; let’s let each other down. Let’s fight about stupid things and argue with passion. Let’s forget to put the toilet seat down or take out the trash. Let’s kiss too deeply and jump in too quickly. Let’s spend too much money and learn how to put ourselves back together once we’ve hit rock bottom. Let’s talk about a future we haven’t seen, and believe in it just the same. Let’s open our hearts, leave them spilling into one another’s laps without hesitation.

Let’s do this, and embrace all the messy and beautiful things that happen when you give your soul to someone just as flawed as you.

Let’s love, damn it. Let’s love like crazy.

Because I know I won’t always do the right thing. I know I won’t always toe the line. I know I’m going to hurt you, unintentionally and maybe even intentionally, immaturely a time or two. I know I’m not always going to be the model girlfriend, not always going to see your perspective or want to understand it. I know I’m not always going to stay the same, or be the woman you want me to be.

But that’s the beautiful thing about love—you grow, you learn, you become alongside someone.

You realize that you won’t always be what each other wants and needs, but you fight to become that. You fight for each other. You fight to stay.

You mess up. You have beautiful moments. You kiss and watch sunsets and sleep in on Saturdays and pick flowers and dance to music and yell behind closed doors and play footsie in the dark and cuddle when it’s late and roll over when you’ve had enough and spill wine on the rug and scream things you don’t mean and somehow find one another’s lips in the morning.

You break, you bend, you remold, you love fiercely.

So let’s be imperfect together.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.
 

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