It’s a soft thing to be loved like this, yet it terrifies me. You love me more than I could ever hate myself. You love me so deeply I forget what it feels like to not even like my own being.
You already adore the things I’m still learning to accept, and the things I already cherish, you love even more. You trace every crack and crevice as if they might grow wider, and you let them, because that’s me, and that’s a part of me you’re willing to love. You remind me again and again how beautiful I am, how much of a pretty girl I look, how deserving I am of something soft.
You love me, and it overwhelms me. It scares me, but I like that. I want to be loved in a way that’s fragile yet consuming, where “I love you” hides inside “stay safe” and “good night.” Where love lingers in the way I call you a loser or a weirdo, in the way I roll my eyes but still smile after. Even in your soft “sorrys” or the grumpy little faces you send.
I’m still learning how to be gentle again, how to love without fear, without begging for scraps.
I’m learning that love doesn’t need to save me from a burning building — it can just be a quiet afternoon walking to your favorite food chain, or a small karaoke booth where your voice trembles on a note and I realize I’ve fallen for you.
It doesn’t have to be grand. It doesn’t need to be the tripping and catching, or the rain at the bus stop when you hand me your umbrella. It can be a quiet morning in the library, the rain against the glass, you handing me a muffin while I laugh and put chapstick on you. It can be me sitting beside you as you study, my head on your shoulder, saying nothing at all. It can be the small glances we share when the room feels too loud, or the soft hum you make when you’re half-asleep. It can be the way your fingers find mine under the table, steady and sure, reminding me I’m here, I’m real, I’m loved.
It could be everything or nothing at all to anyone else, but to us, it’s everything.
All the little things that make me forget how to hate myself because you love me so wholly it swallows me whole. You love me in the way sunlight sneaks through curtains, slow and warm and certain. You love me like you’ve made peace with all my edges. Lover, you love beyond what I’ve ever dreamt of. It scares me how perfect you are. It scares me that I might never be able to love you in the same boundless way, but I want to try.
I want to learn what it means to love softly, the way you do — to give without breaking, to hold without caging. Thank you for loving me more than I could ever hate myself, for teaching me that I don’t have to be saved to be worth saving, that I don’t have to be fixed to be loved.
