These Are All The Ways I Love You

I love you when our days are not determined by alarm clocks, when your room is cast in darkness, and your feet find mine beneath the sheets as you look up at me and whisper ‘hey’ before pulling me into the warmth of your body.

I love the silence between us after, and I smile to myself knowing we have the whole day to be together.

Just me and you.

I love pulling on one of your old t-shirts and you teasing me for stealing more of your clothes, before I chase you down the stairs to make breakfast. I love dancing with you in the minutes before the toast pops up and our lips brushing against each other as the kettle boils.

I love the no make-up, sweats and Netflix, the 2pm laughing fits and 10pm meaningful conversations. I love that the entire house feels like our own world, as if nothing outside these four walls exists, at least not for today.

I love you when our shifts collide and we have to put our ‘professional faces’ on and avoid our pet names for each other slipping into conversation; when we’re standing with our colleagues and I’m fighting the desire to just lean into you. I love when you can’t help but show affection despite where we are; adjusting the work schedule just to run into me.

I love the way you look at me from across the table at lunch and I feel everyone else slip away, your blue-blue eyes focusing on me and I begin to melt just like the first day I saw you.

I love you after too many glasses of wine, when I’m clutching onto your hand and stumbling along the pavement, my heels catching uneven ground and you laugh and call me your ‘baby giraffe’ before pressing your lips to my cheek. I love the way you look in the smoky haze as we sit beneath fairy lights in the garden of our favorite bar doing sambuca shots and talking about our childhoods, our dreams and our futures. I love how I’m always there, in the house you want to buy and in the city you plan on living.

I love you during our walks through London, buses and cabs racing past us as we dodge tourists, and we’re talking literature and psychology and comics. I love that no matter where we are, whenever a dumb song comes on you ask if this can be our ‘first dance’. I love that we’re that annoying PDA couple and I love that when I tell you this, you smile and say you don’t care before grabbing my face and kissing me.

I love you when I don’t see you for days; when our relationship consists of texts and emojis and Snapchats. When I wake up to cute messages and fall asleep to the comfort of you missing me just as much as I do you. I love you when you take a detour from work and end up at my apartment. I love the ‘let’s not talk about work’ before you kiss my nose and hold me against your chest. I love you when you choose to stay because it’s too cold out and you refuse to leave the warmth of my bed.

I love you when your tiredness makes you loopy and you have this adorable, young look about your face. I love you when you make name mash-ups for us and create comic strip stories of our adventures and you sing them at me as you drift off to sleep.

I love every single version of you. And us. I love that you give me hope.

I love that I cannot imagine a time when I won’t love you.

I love you on your worst days and on your best. But mostly, I love that you love me too.