Tell Me How You Feel

“It’s weird, the way you make me feel.”

“Tell me about it.”

“My heart is a chorus of butterflies when you walk into the room, and for a moment I feel as if the butterflies are going to lift me off my feet and carry me farther away. Away from you, and then that thought brings this … tightness to my chest, that makes it feel as if I can’t breathe. The butterflies fly me away from you and it’s all I can do just to breathe again.”

“It sounds like the way I make you feel makes you miserable, Emil.”

“The opposite, actually. You make me feel warm, like when rays of sunshine peak through the curtains in the early morning. Like spring when winter has just ended, and you step outside and you say, ‘Finally, the sun can shine again.’ But the thought of spring ending, and summer ending, and fall ending just for that cold dead winter to come back is what makes me miserable, Ludvig. It’s not you that makes me miserable, it’s the thought of losing something so precious to me.”

“I’m precious to you?”

“Precious does not even begin to describe how you are to me, Ludvig. You are invaluable; you are the skin of the gods molded into one physical form, an array of diamonds fit together until you shine so beautifully in the light. Your skin is like silk; delicate and soft to the touch, and your eyes. Your eyes, they are the most wonderful color of green I have ever laid my own eyes on. To look into your eyes is as if I laid myself down on a soft patch of grass in the forest beneath the trees and closed my eyes, ran my fingers over the soft blades and became one with nature. You are everything I want to look at, now and always for the rest of eternity. Don’t you get that?”

“I want you to touch me.”

“Ludvig.”

“Emil. You’re so sweet, like a candy I wish to keep in my mouth forever just to remember its taste. I don’t know how to take these kind things you say to me, I don’t deserve them.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Ow, why did you squeeze my hand so hard?”

“Because, you’re lying to yourself. You do deserve every kind word that comes from my lips. I don’t lie, Ludvig… not to you. Especially not to you.”

“Then you’re kidding yourself.”

“No. I know what I feel, and I know that I love you.”

“...I love you too.”

“Why did it take you so long to say it?”

“Because I don’t know how someone like you can love me.”

“It’s simple. I just do.”

“It feels more complicated than that, though.”

“It’s not.”

“You’re rather persistent.”

“I know what I want. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“I want you, Emil.”

“I want you too, Ludvig. It’s more than just the butterflies.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you walk into the room and I see you again. I get more than just the butterflies that take my breath away. I feel proud, because we’ve been through so much together and yet I still get to see you walk into a room. I still get to see how excited you get over a loaf of bread, or a cup of coffee in the morning. I still get to hear your tired grumbles as you wake because you are far from a morning person, and I still get to wake up beside you. There was a time where I thought maybe we wouldn’t be able to have that anymore.”

“You always make the mornings much more bearable, Angel.”

“That makes me happy.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.”

“That makes me happy.”

“Tell me what you feel, Ludvig.”

“I’m not good with that.”

“Then just say words.”

“You’re much better with those than I am, Emil.”

“Not true…. I’m waiting.”

“You’re relentless.”

“You love me.”

“I do.”

“Now go on.”

“When I see you sometimes, it’s like my heart is going to beat out of its chest. Like it’s one beat away from tearing through my ribs and dropping to the ground. It’d be messy, and bloody, but… that’s what it feels like. Messy, bloody, dangerous.”

“Sounds brutal.”

“Isn’t love like that, sometimes?”

“Maybe…”

“You touch me and it’s like your fingertips are made of feathers, brushing up against me so gently as if maybe I am some precious gem. I’ve never felt so– so soft, before. You touch my hands, you hold them like you are doing now and it’s like I’ve never hurt someone with them. It’s like your touch washes all the blood away. But then– then eventually I see the blood on your hands, too, and I panic because I did that. The blood from my hands carried over to yours and it … taints you, like a blemish all over your body, a big dark bruise that consumes you–”

“Ludvig.”

“What?”

“Breathe.”

“I am.”

“Not like that. Deep breaths, with me…”

“...Okay.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“Aren’t I though?”

“You’ve done bad things, sure. I’ve known that since I met you. But you aren’t going to … taint me. You can let yourself love, Ludvig. And you can most certainly let yourself be loved. That won’t change who I am.”

“What if it changes who I am?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. You’ve killed with these hands but you have also loved with them. I see it in the way you hold my face so gently in the morning, the way you’re holding my hands now. See? My hands, they’re not bloody, or bruised, or tarnished. You’re touching me and I’m not turning to stone in your hands, I’m here and I’m alive and I love you.”

“But what if I…”

“...Held me? I want you to hold me, Ludvig.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know what I’m thinking right now?”

“What are you thinking, Emil?”

“That I am lying here in your arms, beneath the wooden ceiling of our small little home, and there is no place that I would rather be than right here. You know how some people, they take photos to remember certain moments in time?”

“Yes, Emil.”

“I think this would be one of those moments I would want to keep forever.”

“Would it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

“I love you too, Emil.”

“... How are you feeling?”

“Better. You make everything better.”

“The blood washes away.”

“Yes … it washes away.”

“It’s okay if it comes back, you know.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. And when it does, you’ll tell me? We can wash it away again. I don’t want you to be ashamed of the blood. I think the stains are beautiful.”

“Are they?”

“Yes. Every part of you is beautiful.”

“Sweet candy in my mouth, Emil.”

“A soft patch of grass in the forest for me to lay on.”

“Kiss me.”

“Okay.”