wanting

the third part. supplemental reading to my (unreleased) song, "language learning".

12/10/2022

11:45pm

On Monday, it’ll be one year since I met you. I don’t think I’m the same person you met last December, but I think that’s a good thing. A year ago, I could easily picture my life without you. Which makes perfect sense, because you weren’t here yet and I had no clue you even existed. But now you’re here, and it feels like any possible version of my existence you’re not a part of seems ridiculous to even consider. You were always meant to find me, and I was always destined to be found by you. 

Sometimes you meet someone and suddenly you’re willing to change your plans. Scratch it all. They’re irrelevant now. I’d always felt like I’d let my missing half slip away from me years ago, but the reality is that you just hadn’t shown up yet. The plain and simple truth of it all, is that meeting you changed everything. I was angry for a long time. All the bitterness, all the anger I held, just pent up inside, boiling hot and bubbling over, seeped its way out of me as soon as you arrived. All my heartache and misery was a liquid that had spilled out onto the floor, making its way into the grout (oh no, now that’s going to leave a mark, isn’t it?); its opaque rancidness creating seemingly permanent stains. And no matter how hard I tried to clean it up, all the various types of towels and rags I’d wasted, all the home remedies I’d attempted to use in order to get rid of it — nothing ever truly seemed to work.

Then you walked into my life, just being the perfect solution you are, and it disappeared. It all just didn’t matter anymore; those moments in my life no longer held any real significance. I understood now that it all happened for a reason and shaped me into who I am now, but I no longer wished any ill will upon the people who caused me any form of heartbreak and pain. I was sharp and jagged all around, but you’ve made me smooth around the edges. And the floors look better than they have in years. 

Now I want to be soft — to be gentle; domestic. I want to be tender and to be asked how my day went. I want to melt and I want to dissolve. I want to be safe and I want to be warm. I didn’t know I wanted these things until you showed me I could. I want soup when I’m sick and leftovers for breakfast and carrot cake for no reason. I want you eyes half-closed and partly asleep, voice groggy. I want you bright-eyed and sprightly, full of excitement and out of breath. I want to walk around in shops and point at the most grotesque item of clothing and jokingly say it would look great on you. It feels illogical, sometimes, to want these things, but then I remember that the plain act of wanting them serves as a reminder that I do feel them in the first place; that I am capable of it. That you are real, and not just something I conjured up in my mind. 

Perhaps this is all there really is to love: a constant goodnight, a wish good luck, the checking-in (“How did that test go?” — “I don’t know, I think it went okay” — and then — “I’m sure you did wonderfully”), inquiring about your day, you telling me all about it, learning to be comfortable in the gaps of silence, and being there just to be there and nothing else. There’s a giddy feeling in my gut, realizing how good it feels to laugh with you and how badly I want to do this forever. We’re talking about grad school and the book you just finished reading and I’m stalling because I don’t want to say goodbye. The feeling ebbs and flows inside of me as I realize how fluent you’ve become in my language in so little time — a language that many have tried and given up, or simply failed to understand — and I’m starting to think that maybe love does not have to be complicated and messy and interesting like everyone makes it out to be. Maybe it can be simple. Maybe it can be easy. 

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listen to “language learning” (acoustic demo):