Love Me In All My Forms

Love me when I wake up to the first ring of my alarm and I’m already jumping from bed before you open your eyes. When my shirt’s already laying on the dresser for me to slip into. When the toothbrush’s already in my mouth and the shoes and smoothie are waiting for me to grab on my way out. When I’m three hundred miles an hour before words can even leave your lips. When I’m quick kisses and hurried texts and to-do lists writing themselves in my mind. When I forget to notice the little things—those little moments with you. Remind me, baby. Please remind me.

Love me when there’s crushed wads of paper around my feet, when my heart is a heavy weight in my hands and you can’t shake the emptiness I’m feeling. When the words don’t come. Oh, please love me when the words don’t come. When the stillness of my mind feels like an absence of life. When I fail. When I don’t see all that I’ve done. When all I can focus on is what I’ve lost, or don’t have. When the creativity isn’t pouring out of me like blood from a fresh wound. When I’m silent. Love me when I’m silent.

Love me when we’re running through the farmer’s market. When I’m dancing with flowers pressed to my nose. When I’m pulling your arm with that energy you tease is borderline wild. When you twirl me under the streetlight on Newport and I can’t help but throw my head back and laugh. Love me when it feels like time is endless. When there’s nothing for us to do, nowhere for us to be than right where we are, arm-in-arm, forgetting both yesterday and tomorrow simultaneously. Love me like there’s nowhere else we’d rather be. Because there isn’t for me, baby. I promise.

Love me when I’m fresh from the shower and my hair is falling in my shoulders all cold and wet. When my mascara has made little black pools under my eyelids and I no longer look like the confident woman you know, but the vulnerable child standing before you in all her mess and sweet imperfection, loving the hell out of you.

Love me when the bottle of wine’s empty on the counter between us and I’m slurring my words with that sweet-sour taste on my tongue. When the confessions of future days slip from my lips and you’re not quite ready for them. When my breathing’s heavy and I’m leaning on your shoulder just to stand. When my kisses are sloppy and I might not remember the exact words you said but I’ll still feel them in my chest. I’ll feel them, I will.

Love me when I’m all over the place. When I can’t sit still. When I’m pointing out skyscrapers from the window of an airplane. When we’re kissing coral reefs with our toes and singing to fish thirty feet under the ocean’s tide. Love me when I’m soaking up the earth, when I’m grabbing every little piece of life and holding it in my palms. Love me when I’m far too much. I’ll be your ‘too much,’ I’ll gladly be that joy you can’t stop feeling.

Love me when I’m loud. When I’m slammed doors and balled fists. When you can’t understand the ‘why’ that’s floating through my mind and maybe don’t want to right now. When we retreat to opposite corners. When I take my running shoes and leave without a goodbye. When I get in the car and drive to that open highway, just to hear the sound of pavement disappearing under my feet. I won’t leave forever. I’ll always come back. Please love me when you’re tired of loving. When we don’t see eye-to-eye. When we almost both give up. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t give up.

Love me when the kisses are slow. When the world is hazy and we’re falling into one another’s arms as if we were both meant to be there. Finally finding our home. Love me in all the ways you couldn’t love the ones who came before. Love me in the ways you’ve never experienced because baby, I promise I’m right there with you. Love me with the lights on. The lights off. With the stars speaking promises between us as we share dreams of our own. Love me in the ways I love myself, and in the ways I still struggle to. Love me when I forget who I am. Love me in spite of every doubt, every fear. Love me in all my forms.

And I will love you harder. I will.