Before you go any further, you need to read this. You need to know. I will love you with everything I have in me, but sometimes everything won’t be enough. It may even be very nearly close to nothing. But I will give it all I’ve got.
Listen to me. I will, in all likelihood, be very difficult to love. I may become the only person you’ve ever wanted to strangle or have a good chance at in a dark alleyway, but I also promise that I will simultaneously be the only person you’ve ever wanted to come to the rescue for.
There will be days when I will not be able to get out of bed. And there will be no way in hell that you’ll be able to coerce me into doing so- so just rub my back until my spine evolves into being strong enough to lift me out from underneath the covers.
And even though it may seem counter-intuitive, don’t leave me alone when I ask to be, and let me be when I cling for help. My corners are sharp but my heart is soft, and I am a woman of opposites. So learn them well.
I can only heal you to the extent with which I am able to heal myself. And listen: just like the ocean tides can easily turn into tsunamis with the right weather conditions, I may easily turn into the storm that drowns you multiple times before finally sweeping you out to dry land, but do not be afraid, because there will be calmer seas soon. So love me as much as you are able when I am a raging thunderstorm, a boiling earthquake, a trembling landslide, a vicious volcano, but please, if I become too much for you, you have every right to leave.
But never, ever leave me simply for the excuse that I couldn’t keep my head above water. I have been trying for the past five years of my life to do more than just that, to keep my whole body above water, but without your support I’ll only end up treading.
I am not your punching bag, a notch in your bed, or a single voice in your head. I am a human being and I deserve respect.
But you deserve respect too. So you have every right to storm out, even to throw my plates across the room until they shatter against the wall, to yell until your lungs grow hoarse, if I have hurt you badly enough. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to be disappointed in me. You are allowed to tell me what I can do better.
And I will do my best to be better.
My voice may be weak but my morals are strong. I’m sick and tired of lovers using me for tinder when all I want is to burn on my own sometimes, burn so fiercely I could spin into a forest fire, collapse like a black hole or a dying star, so just me be my own version of a disaster sometimes. Just let me be.
Love me, but sometimes you’ll have to set me free.