1.

Whenever you text me to tell me the thought of me helps get you through your day and I tell you I’m thinking of you too, I’m not saying it just to give you a response. The truth is, I do. The truth is, I downplay how much. The truth is, it scares me because it’s all the time.

I open my eyes in the morning, my mind fresh of you. Most of the time, it’s because I put myself to sleep using the thought of you like a lullaby. Honestly, I think of you every night.

When you said the thought of me brings you a comfort and calm, yet wakes you up in other ways, I know exactly what you meant.

2.

Sometimes I want to text you things like “what are you doing this weekend? let’s get out of here. let’s get an Airbnb somewhere, explore some other city’s main street, or spend our time exploring each other on some rug, some bed, with empty bottles of wine and empty plates of pasta around us.”

I just want to go everywhere and anywhere with you. I just want to get lost nowhere with you.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to know someone as much as I wish I knew every single little thing about you. I wonder about your childhood. Like what your house looked like growing up. Did you spend time outside getting lost in your own fantasy world? Were the night skies clear from your backyard? Are there fireflies in Finland? Do you look like your father or mother? Whose eyes do you have? They’re the warmest and prettiest I’ve ever looked at. They’ve got this kind of power to make me feel weak, yet make me feel at ease. I want to know how you became so kind and thoughtful of others. I want to know where on your skin you crave the most attention. I want to know every little place that gets you. I want to kiss you there. I want to put my mouth on each.

3.

When you sent me that text asking if I was awake, and if I was to tell you something very few people know, it was the sexiest text that had ever come my way. Nobody has ever really wanted to know me for more than my body. Sometimes you say things to me and I don’t know how to respond because I’m not used to someone being so nice to me or so intrigued by me. I didn’t realize how much I wasn’t used to talking about myself until our first date. I’ve been told I can be intimidating, but I don’t think I hold a candle to the way you hold my gaze. It terrifies me, it excites me. It makes me want to tell you everything nobody knows about me.

4.

Lately, I’ve really been battling myself on not sabotaging whatever this is. I’m a master of self-sabotage, especially when something is good for me. I don’t know what this is. It’s so new. I just know it’s rare. I just know it’s something that could be special. The truth is, I am deathly afraid of letting anyone get close to me, of vulnerability, of intimacy, and especially of being happy. I have made up all these excuses to push you away, but I haven’t. I don’t want to. I hope you’ll pick up on this. I hope you won’t let me fuck this up.

Last time I saw you, you said I was looking at you and saying goodbye like I wasn’t going to see you again. You asked me if I was the type to run when things got good. And yeah, I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I was getting ready to run. I don’t know if it was your kiss or the way you could see through me that made me change my mind.

5.

I don’t think much of men, even ones I’ve been in love with, but I think you’re pretty amazing. Endlessly fascinating. Pardon my cliché, but you’re just so different. In every single imaginable way. I think one of the things I’m most afraid of is coming to find out you’re just the same.

6.

Finding out you’re cut from the same cloth would break my heart. I don’t know what to call this, but I feel something for you, and the fact that you could have the power to hurt me scares me. It’s on my list of reasons for pushing you away. But so is feeling like you might be too good for me. There’s this light and color to your aura, there’s this warmth and gentleness about you, there’s this good I see in you, and I don’t think I deserve any of it.

7.

I will probably fuck this up.

8.

I really don’t want to fuck this up.

9.

Since I met you, I can’t write much about him anymore. I don’t think it’s all you, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I used to think he was my best poem, that he was the love of my life, that he was it for me, but I know for a fact now that this isn’t the case.

10.

I feel all this poetry humming just beneath my skin, waiting to come out the next time you put your hands on me.

11.

I’ve lived my life numb for a long time now, but you’re making me feel things. Things that make me want to be a better version of myself.

12.

I wish you made an effort to spend more time with me. The truth is, I won’t try. Sometimes I wonder if it has less to do with how busy we are, getting to the city, and more to do with maybe a lack of interest in me. Maybe this is just me making excuses again, trying to talk myself out of your sincerity. I hope that’s it, but I won’t ever believe it unless you show me.

13.

I’ve been trying to pretend that thinking about anybody, that liking somebody, isn’t really that big of a deal, but for someone like me, it is. I feel a general disinterest in people. Sometimes, even annoyance. I haven’t been interested in anybody in a long time. It bothers me that I got you under my skin. Over the weekend, I wanted nothing more than to not think of you. But there I was, in the middle of this beautiful lake, and all I could think of was how much the color looked like your green eyes. How much I wished you were there with me. I was downtown, and all I could think of was how much I’d rather be anywhere else with you. How bored I am with accepting drinks from men who don’t move me in any way. I realized how much I didn’t want to kiss anybody else.

14.

I’m afraid you’ll really get to know me and no longer like what you see. I’m afraid because I want nothing more than for your hand in my hand to become a familiarity.