i. words of affirmation

you say i love you but what i hear is i am leaving soon. you call me beautiful but what i hear is for now. i have learned to translate softness into expiration dates, compliments into countdowns. there is a window in my chest that only lets light in when it’s cloudy. i write down every good thing you say, just in case i need proof later that i was something more than tolerated. but words are fickle. words are just sounds dressed up to look permanent. i watch them peel off the walls.

ii. acts of service

once, when i was seven, my mother cut the crust off my sandwich & i thought: this is love. years later, someone hands me a glass of water & i think: is this love? my hands shake too much to carry tenderness, so i leave it in small places—fold your laundry, fix the crooked frame on your wall, hold the door open. i have learned that love is best spoken through verbs. if i do enough, will you stay? if i make the world easier for you to carry, will you make room for me in it?

iii. receiving gifts

i collect things that do not belong to me—bus tickets, hotel keys, a t-shirt you forgot at my place. love is proof of existence, & i need proof of you. i give you a book & tell you to think of me when you read it. you give me a bracelet & i pretend it isn’t a handcuff. people leave, but things stay. things are what haunt you when the person is gone. i wrap my hands around a coffee mug you once held & pretend i’m holding you instead.

iv. quality time

sit with me in the silence. let’s fill this room with nothing & call it something. let’s stretch the night until it forgets to become morning. i measure love in hours, in the spaces between sentences, in the weight of your body on the other side of the couch. stay a little longer. stay until the clock forgets its job. stay until my ribs unlearn the shape of loneliness.

v. physical touch

i have a bruise on my knee & i press it just to feel something. i press it & think of your hands. love has always been something i could only understand with my skin—forehead kisses, fingers tracing words on my arm, the way you pull me closer in your sleep. touch is the first language we learn & maybe the only one that really means anything. i want to be held like an apology, like a prayer, like a memory you don’t want to lose.

i say i love you but what i mean is: tell me this isn’t temporary. show me. hold me. stay.