"I loved you because you let me see your innocence."
A 10-word love letter.
... and when you let me see your innocence, you let me see mine too. it was as if you bled innocence. and when I looked in your puppy dog eyes, I saw the ghost of my own inner child. I saw her. she knew.
I always saw your innocence, and I always knew it, too. I always knew you WERE innocent. that's why I couldn't stay angry with you.
it's also why I chose to stay with you, and why I chose not to betray you. I knew you needed my loyalty more than I needed yours. I wanted you to see what I saw.
I loved you the way I did because it taught me how to love in the way I want to. it wasn't you who tested me. I tested myself.
we were perfect mirrors. I see that now. I saw it then. because you also loved me too. you loved me in ways I couldn't love myself. you loved me in ways I didn't know how to.
I remember small moments of intimacy in the huge marble bathroom. I remember how you juxtaposed frustration with tenderness in everything you did, do, are. I remember how I felt your heart even when you were angry. I remember all the things I will never speak about publicly.
you made me feel beautiful even when I felt ugly. you made me feel wanted even when I didn't want myself. you made me feel desired even when I felt disgusting. in your own way: you also gave me an embodied experience of depth, presence & love.
I wanted you to love me differently, but your love was perfect. you wanted me to love you differently, but my love was perfect. you showed me what I really wanted & gave me what I really needed. best of all: I didn't need to know, ask or try.
pain is the price we pay for love. not because love is inherently painful, but because a part of me never wanted to leave your arms. it was as if we were in another world, and perhaps we were. I wanted the good parts of what we had to last forever. isn't that how everyone feels?
leaving you felt like leaving a part of myself. leaving you was a huge loss & so was losing you. loving you, I loved a part of myself that I’d never had access to before. I didn't want to let her go. loving you, I learned how to lose something & someone other than myself to love.
loving you always made sense to me. loving you was always easy for me. our love rarely challenged me. our circumstances did.
I trusted myself, I trusted you, and I was right to do both. it was risky, but it didn't feel like it; it didn't feel risky at all. it felt like natural order. I loved you because you trusted me enough to let me see you as innocent.
Flirt with me (innocently).
Framing “it was risky, but didn’t feel like it…it felt like natural order.”
Resonating with all this deeply. I feel a lot of grief in it. And even more love.