Sweet & Stubborn Love
How falling for you made me believe in men again
I’ve never written about you. Not because you don’t make my heart beat. Because it beats slow and steady when I’m in your arms. But it is the fast pulse that fuels my fingers, it is the love that races through my veins frantically that jolts me to type. And so the blank page has been stored in the back of my mind with no intention of being filled with words about you— a dismissal of sorts. Yet, you gently inquired every so often, will you write today? I knew what you meant… Will you write about me? About us?
You are not the first man to desire to be the subject of my stories, but I suspect you are the only one who has read all the tales that are shamelessly published for all inquiring minds to see. You want to read me. Even though my book is bound by all the men that came before you. You want to crack its spine and sift through the sequence of events that led me to you. Despite the fact that you’ve never picked up a piece of literature in your life, you’re thirsty for my prose and it shows.
Tickled by your curiosity I asked you why you wanted to be scrutinized so. Your response baffled and humbled me. It is because you want to drink my thoughts like a cold beer on a hot summer day. It seems learning all my facets is how you quench your thirst for my being, in the same way that your hands firmly pressed on my waist satisfies your urge to please me. You want to know my innermost feelings so you can love me more deeply and with even more abandon. Who is this man who learns me without ego? Who wants to love me knowingly and in plain sight? I often wonder.
I haven’t written about you for you are soft and gentle, you envelop my heart with the most tender cotton and you stick to my fingers like honey, sweet and stubborn. Yet, I write about such things as sandpaper and metal bristles, scratching my surfaces until I bleed words that console me, that make me feel safe. But you protect me from those elements. You soothe my moods. You swallow my pain and make me bright like new. And I don’t know how to write about that kind of love. A love that mends. A love that heals.
Your world is small yet you widen mine with a love that knows no conditions or restraints. You push the limits of what I have been taught men are meant to be. Instead, you morph to my whims and you bend the boundaries of generosity and gratitude. I teach you about cheese and show you new sex positions. In return, you teach me that a lover can be both patient and stable. It seems to me you’ve been shafted. But I know in my gut you would sternly disagree.
Nevertheless, I am capricious with my actions, at times testing your limits. You meet my insecurities with an unwavering sense of belonging. Like nothing I can do will make you dissolve. You are oil to my water, keeping me grounded, yet leaving me whole. You are my antithesis in the ways that no longer seem to matter. In all the interpretations you are the right to my left. Yet to my surprise, we have achieved equilibrium. From each pole, we clamored towards each other until we met. Fitting neatly together, my nose in your neck, your arms wrapped tightly around my torso.
You say I am kind, that I am caring; that I make you feel loved and wanted. And this seems to be what allows you to overlook all my dark circles and scabs. You take me as I am and you make me the center of your thoughts and the intention behind your actions. I believe deep down in my innards that I don’t deserve this kind of love. Not because of my countless flaws, but because no one deserves the adoration of which you make me the subject every day. It is as with luck and privilege, one cannot logically state that they have succeeded without them. The truth of the matter is that I am the most fortunate girl in the world that on that unsuspecting day you happened to sit down right beside me.
