In Search of a Gentle Battering Ram.

If you can get through my walls, it will be a miracle.

I want to have you speak the word, "love" first, because each time I have spoken first; it was the deathknell of that connection.

Infatuation is for beginnings; I'm far more interested in hearing where you think our journey can go, if we plan it out right.

I will trust you to go about your days without seeking constant validation; but I will welcome you with open arms as we seek solace at the end of the mundane, seeing the fantastical in your soul through your eyes, as we commune over our evening rituals. The ones that we make.

I will love all the ugly parts, the don't-fit parts; the shadow-pieces that wreak havoc, since no friend or family would listen to them as you grew. I expect the same from you. I will lovingly listen to those pieces, but tell them firmly that they may not cross the boundary of harm. I expect the same from you.

No one escaped childhood wholly unscathed.

I want you to challenge me; but by keeping me from getting too set on my ways. I want you to tell me things I've never heard of. I want you to beg me to travel with you, to make it possible. I want you to show me how to love open all the ugly things in the world. I have my luggage; but I'll help you drag yours, too, within reason.

I want you to keen with my mournings, even as you nudge me to put them down. I want to give you the same. I want to banter and bloviate and bicker and babble blathering buffoonery, and have you call all my bluffs; since we're only playing games in the first place.

I want the most awful puns you can think of. I want laughter. I'll see what I can do about tit for tatt.

I want you to seek the unasked questions with me. Take me with you so we can create new constellations, far away from cities. Remember with me, the dreams that aren't really dreams.

We cannot be everything to each other; it's best we don't even try. But the entity that is born between us shall have given unto it as many breaths as we can possibly share to give it life.

I want you to know that when we break, we can choose to rearrange the pieces and line them with platinum. We'll be something new again; even as we age and fall apart. If we're still together when our bodies no longer churn out hormones, I will still treasure the comfort of your closeness as I lay with you and stroke your face and head with my fingertips and lips; in memory of all the other places they have been with you.

If we cannot become this?

Don't beg for entry. Do not come rapping-tapping on my chamber doors. My fortress is here to guard me well.

It will be a miracle if you surpass all the gates.

Yet: I am waiting for you; are you seeking me?

I stopped searching; but I still watch for your passage. I am listening.

Say something.