loveladder

The thing is, I don't want to be loved "still" or "anyway" - less, or compensatory. I don't want the things I could be, the things I should be, hovering over my head.

I don't want to need reassurance. I want to be a reassurance.

I want to be loved always and forever, because I'm lovely. Not despite my warts.

I know, I know, it's individual self-perception; warts are quirks are charms. And I know, for goodness's sake, everyone has them, even the most perfect of us all.

No though and no even so, no conjunction nor contradiction.

Because, the thing is, I believe you. I believe there is love to begin with. There never was any, before. And not everything new stays alive to grow old. Some seeds just die and rot. That's life.

Don't love me because you have to. Love me because you can't help it. Love me because I earned it. Love me because the safety net scares me.

I don't want anyone to think I have that horrible youthful disease where everything I do must be the most specially laudable achievement, and every communication of insecurity a request for alignable praise. No, no; that is a bar for me, myself. If I'm the same as everyone else, why am I even here?

Everyone has flaws. Everyone is loved anyway. You have to understand that. You have to accept that.

But no, you don't see - accept that I want to rise above.

Want to. Need to.

I want to talk about why and how. I want to talk about deep and broad.

I don't want to spend the days I walk in true loving sunshine looking-squinting-hunting-hunkering for that palatable, presentable bit of shade.

And on that note, I don't want to take love that comes disguised as snideness; that complex code of dismissive patterns where you swear they're talking nice about you behind your back, but to your face they think you can and should do a little bit of fair-play dodging.

I'll earn it. If it's the hard way, so be it. But when I'm there, let me know.

I want it all.

I want to be it all.

Is that so hard?

Is that so hard to understand?