'I can't say it.' by Ruby Beard

To hear your every sigh and your every hope and dream and I would do anything just to stop time in those moments, so we could talk for hours and hours and forever if you wished. Or we could simply sit in silence and just listen to the sounds of our breathing, of the breeze… of the sea as it crashed on the shore or the wind as it blew through the fields, or the fire crackling in the hearth, or even just the sounds echoing in a cave.

I cannot tell you how much I want to hold you after every day you come home. I cannot say how much I want you to hold me back. How badly I want to sit across from you every day after you come home and ask you how your day went. How much I would give for you to look at me and tell me of your worst day, or how much more I would sacrifice to hear of your best days. I want to smile and laugh with you, I want to frown and cry with you. I want to share every grimace, every jolt of surprise, every single thing there is to life with you. I want to comfort you when you are scared or sad or hurt. Or give you advice if you would prefer that. I want and need a life with you. I want it so badly I feel I am going to break in two.

I would go anywhere with you. I would go anywhere for you. I would do anything with and for you. And I would do it all because I love you. But I cannot say it… I cannot say it because I am scared you won’t love me back. I am so, so scared you will reject these thoughts and ideas. I am terrified that you would leave me again, and that you would say I couldn’t possibly mean that. I am afraid that you would call me silly, or simply leave in silence. Over all else, I am most frightened that you would begin speaking as though you aren’t all that much, that you are insignificant simply because of all that was done and told to you by so many who were in your life before I came into it.

I am afraid that you would begin to echo their words over the words I tell you over and over again. That you are worth it. That you deserve better. That there is hope. That you are not a disappointment. I am afraid that those things would be drowned out by the voices in your head, the echoes of your past telling you you're not, that you deserve worse, that there is no hope for you. I am here to tell you otherwise.

You are so much more. You do so much more and you mean so much more to me. I can’t bear to spend another day without your contact. I cannot think about anything but you in my spare moments. When I am focused on nothing else, my mind drifts out across the thousands of miles to you and I simply smile. I don’t even realize I am smiling. My world is so much better with you in it, and I want so badly for you to stay, and I would do anything to make you stay. I would be your person, awaiting you at your home. I would be there. I would be there for you even if it meant giving up everything I want in life because I need you more than I want them. The only problem, the only obstacle, the only thing in my way -

I can’t say it.

This story is dedicated to the only person I may ever love romantically in this life. I want you to know that everything said here is true. I would do anything for you.