Him

I think my problem is that I think things through much too often. People are always telling you to “think things through” before you do something, but I think things through to the point where I end up doing nothing. I think of you, and the few weekends we shared, on cracked pavements, and deserted parking-lots, and musty train stations at four-fifteen in the morning, where we were stuck between the beginning of some people’s days and the ending of some other’s nights. I think of you, and the sparkle in your eye and the flutter in my stomach when I made you laugh. The softness of your voice when you spoke of your mother. Those moments, so fleeting, so honest, meant so much to me. And now, I sit here and I think. I’m thinking things through, you see. I’m thinking the things so through that it’s getting to the point where I’m starting to wonder if I even matter to you. And this is the part of my thinking-through that bothers me the most. You see, this often happens. I wish it wouldn’t. I start to question everything, and let me tell you, questioning everything at this certain stage is not a good thing. I am not very fond of questions nowadays. Were those moments as important to you as they were to me? I worry. I worry that they weren’t and that you will be like “all the others” although of course I know already that you will not be, as I have not met anybody quite like you before. I worry that the distance between us will cause me to grow faint in your memory, like the math formula you were supposed to learn last Tuesday and have now forgotten even though your test is in five minutes. I worry that I will fade in your memory as you remain constant in mine, becoming ever-clearer with each passing day. I think of you really quite a lot, and I worry, and I continue to think, and I think you through. I think of all your previous conquests (and the lack of my own), and how each had bouncy hair and a pretty smile and everything going for them. Why, then, would you take your time with me? Why, then, would you get so upset on that one night when I got so drunk and upset over you that I pretended I didn’t know you when you arrived and you just left, and sat on those church steps across the street and cried? I keep thinking of the way you just sat there, shaking and sobbing, wondering why, and how, I could have that effect on you. I keep telling myself it was because you cared about me, but I can’t help thinking that that was only temporary, and that you’ll find yourself another me in no time flat. This thinking-things-through has led me to believe that I am not good enough for you, and not worthy of your time, and not pretty enough, or smart enough, or strong enough to be yours. I thought I just wanted to feel relevant; to be wanted by somebody, even if it was for only a few minutes. But it turns out I just want to be wanted by you. I’d be so proud of you. I’d tell everybody you were mine with a huge smile on my face. I’d listen to you. I’d kiss your scars every day. I’d kiss you on that one place on your neck that I know you love being kissed. I’d be happy just holding your hand. Would you let me? Would you let me be yours? Would you tell me all your secrets? Your favourite song? The thing you always think about right before bed? Would you tell me about you? Because I am dying to know. I want every bit of you. If you’d let me, I would love every version of you. I would fall so deeply in love with you that I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint when it happened exactly, it would just be a thing that always was. I don’t want you to worry about breaking my heart. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you. I promise I would not break your heart. I know you worry about being left behind, about being a temporary person when you are dying to be somebody’s permanent. I feel this every day, too. I know I am a temporary person, the stop-off on the way to everybody’s “something better” but I don’t want you to stop-off with me. I want you to stay. I want you to be my permanent person and for me to be yours. I can’t promise you that things won’t go wrong, because they will, but I know at the end of the day, we will always find each other and make things right again. I know I must sound crazy, I haven’t even known you very long, but I do know for sure that my heart has the capacity to love, and it’s been waiting to love, and I think it’s gone ahead and started to love you already. I can’t apologize for that. But I do apologize for my lack of courage, for my stupid text messages and the way I grip your arm a little too tightly. For my annoying questions, and the way I always doubt myself. I am sorry that I need so many reminders that somebody cares. That you care. I do not know why I am this way. I am thinking things through, you see, and have been ever since I could think. And this thinking-things-through has led me to believe, to know, that if you and I were to be together, we’d work. Our broken pieces would somehow fit and I’d fix you and you’d fix me. We could heal each other. Or maybe we couldn’t. I know there are some things that cannot be fixed or healed. But I would love you. If you only take one thing away from this, please just know that I would love you. If only you’d let me.