I Wish To Be

used to think that love was about something I earned. I thought it was about collecting reason by reason. It feels like I will get a lot of love as a prize for having good behavior. It really seems like a reward for being the shiniest version of myself.

Love makes me feel like I had to earn it. I had to be something more before I was allowed to be loved.

Some say, the bitterness had to be distilled into something sweeter, before it was worthy of being swallowed. I had to carve myself into a shape that fit the hands of someone else. I had to smooth out my jagged edges, or else, I was just a burden. I was just a problem waiting to be solved. In another sentence, I was just a rough sketch no one wanted to finish.

Love was not love unless it came with reasons. Unless it was because.

Because, I loved them.

Because, I was easy.

Because, I was willing to do anything for them.

Never despite.

Never when I was dull.

Never when I was nothing, but a quiet aching thing in my own life.

Love was not love unless it was conditional. Unless it was because of.

Because of my love and affection.

Because of my willingness and usefulness.

Because of I was easy to love.

Never in spite of.

Never when I was quiet.

Never when I was nothing.

And maybe, maybe that was why it hurt so much. Because, love was never really about me. It was about what I could be, what I could give, and how I could pay it off in return.

I wish to be seen without performing.
What if someone loved me when I was not even trying? When my hair was a mess from sleeping too long. When I am quiet at breakfast just watching the steam rise from my coffee. Not the me that tells good stories at parties nor holidays, but the one who sometimes stares too long at nothing. The me that exists between the big moments. Would they still look at me, then? Or would their eyes slide right past and start searching for someone more interesting?

I wish to be heard without screaming.
I have spent so long turning my thoughts into a bunch of fireworks. My thoughts feel loud and impossible to ignore. But, what if someone cared about the embers too? The half-formed worries I swallow down with my morning tea. The dumb little thoughts I am embarrassed to say out loud. What if they listened to my silences like they were just as important as my words?

I wish to be missed without disappearing.
I want to be wanted when I am right here. Right in front of the eyes that could not see me as a whole. Not when I have gone somewhere else. Not when I am just a memory wrapped in the deep memories of nostalgia. Cannot someone ache for me while I am sitting across from them at the dinner table? While my hand is in theirs on a Tuesday afternoon?

I wish to be enough without proving it.
There is no checklist of accomplishments. No desperate showing off of my best qualities like a street vendor displaying his wares. Just me. Me with my weird laugh and bad moods and all the unremarkable parts being sufficient. Not because I have earned it, but because love is not something I earn.

I wish to be held without falling apart.
I am so tired of love only finding me in pieces. What if arms wrapped around me while I was still whole? What if tenderness was not just for the broken, but for the barely holding on, for the not-quite-falling-yet? Why does kindness always come after the breaking? Why do arms only open when I am already in pieces? I want to be held when I am whole. It is not because I need it, but because someone wants to. Because my ordinary and unbroken self is worth holding too.

I wish to be understood without explaining.
I will not bother to translate my heart into simpler words. I will not bother to cut off the messy bits of myself to make it easier for people to love me. I will just take that quiet moment when someone nods and says ‘I know’ and actually does.

I wish to be wanted without conditions.
Not when I am happy. Not when I am easy. Not when I am useful. Not when I have something to offer. Not when I have to hide my flaws to be the definition of perfect. Not when I have to be someone else just to fulfill someone’s expectations. Just because, I am wanted. Just because, I am me.

I wish to be.
Not to be better. Not to be more. Just to be.

I do not know if this kind of love exists anywhere or not, but in the margins of dog-eared poetry books, maybe it will end as a story I tell to me and myself only. A story full of beautiful lies to make the loneliness shift, like the way children imagine monsters under their beds just to explain the creaking floors.

Maybe real love was not about some sort of unconditional thing. Maybe it is always a little selfish. A hunger that asks to be fed in return. Maybe it was never just take me as I am, but take me as I am… and here is what I need from you, too. Maybe that is all we ever get.

And maybe, that is okay. Maybe I will learn to love the hunger instead of resenting it. Maybe I will stop waiting for someone to love me without wanting anything back and realize that is not how people work. We all want something. We all need something. Maybe the miracle is not being loved perfectly, but being loved anyway, even when it is messy.

Or maybe, maybe I will spend my whole life chasing after some perfect, weightless love that does not ask me to bend. Only to realize, years too late, that I was the one who refused to bend. That I was so afraid of being loved for the wrong reasons, I would not let myself be loved at all.

And that sounds like the cruelest joke, no? To finally find someone who wants me as I am, only to realize I have spent so long bracing for rejection, I forgot how to open the door when love finally knocked.