Tag: romance

Forelsket

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.”

–          Alfred Tennyson

Inside the heart of every man and woman lies a little patch of soil. This foundation for the garden bed of our deepest desires sits buried beneath the soft tissue of our atriums and ventricles in a place so sacred we share it only with those worthy of our truest affections. As children our gardens are bare, and we look to those that we love the most to teach us how to bring flowers to bloom. But as we grow and find our place in this world, we begin to cultivate a space that is uniquely our own.

Some people learn quickly; as though horticulture is ingrained into their DNA. They create nurseries bursting with life, or build a bedframe around their plot of dirt, allowing exotic flowers to grow in the empty space where a mattress once was. But some, like me, spend their lives patiently toiling away at an empty plot held together by weather worn timber and rusty nails; determined to grow something more than the florets of a winter’s frost that have settled against the earth.

There have been times when my garden has known the flowers and fragrance of seasonal romance. In my younger years I gave life to blooms that were never meant to last. I knew that my actions were foolish. But with each change of season I learned more about how to nurture the florae that blossomed within my chest. I didn’t realise it then, but as I broke my own heart over and over again, I was preparing myself for something far greater than anything that I had ever known. I was preparing myself for you.

When I was a boy I experienced the blooms of passing fancies. I smelled the scents of fleeting passion and marvelled at the petals of brief affairs. But my garden has never known a flower as beautiful as you…

You came into my life like spores floating on a gentle breeze, burying yourself inside of me with a mischievous smile that you sealed with a kiss. I was so captivated by who you were that I opened my chest, letting you sink beneath my dirt so that your roots could grow. I watered you, and let the sun warm your features until the first tiny green shoots of love grew inside my chest.

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You became the first thing on my mind when I woke each morning, and the last before I fell asleep at night. With each passing thought of you I watched in awe as the flowers of my garden continued to blossom. Some of my thoughts have been more pure than others; I often dream of rubbing your stomach when you’re sick, or sharing in your moments of success and personal growth. But I have also longed to know how your breath catches in your throat when I press my hips hard against yours, or what it feels like to leave goose bumps across your naked body as my lips softly caress your skin.

I know that this sounds scary. Believe me, I’m scared too. But I knew from the moment that I saw you that you were destined to be so much more than just another seasonal romance. 

You are the kindred spirit that I was always meant to find; the flower brought to bloom in the dirt of my soul. The way that my imagination has traversed the contours of your landscape, explored the depths of your heart and mind, and contemplated a future by your side has caused a shift within me. Because of you, what was once a tiny patch of dirt held together by worn timber beams buried in my chest is now a spectacular garden that stretches as far as my mind’s eye can conceive.

Because of you, I stroll through lilies when I picture your smile, or peonies when I remind myself of how I can feel your heart beat through your fingertips when we touch. I smell the allure of roses when I think of the moments of lust that I long to share together, and the fragrance of lavender and honeysuckle when I imagine you asleep beneath my sheets.

I have never known a flower as beautiful as you. I have never met a woman who could smile at me so mischievously and steal my heart. But now that I know how it feels to find someone who can take my breath away, I want to spend forever wandering through my garden, exploring the blooms that you have brought to life within me. I want to spend my life falling in love with the woman that you are every single day, and grow into the man that you need me to be. And I want to smell the subtle scent of lavender and honeysuckle beneath my sheets each morning until our bodies grow old and wrinkly.

I yearn to become lost inside of you, and to find myself again in your sensuousness and beauty. I want to be the flower that blooms within your chest; to be the man who devotes his life to nurturing your mind, holding your heart, and worshiping the intricacies of your flesh. I want to spend our time walking through our gardens, hand in hand, until our souls melt together as one.

We can spend the rest of our lives smelling the fragrance of roses when our bodies collide, or cooling ourselves beneath the shade of palms when we are tired and weary. And when we grow old, we can spend our afternoons lost amongst the fields of lilies that were once nothing more than little patches of soil in our chests. We can watch the setting sun as it sinks beneath the horizon. I can be yours; and you can be mine forever.

Meraki

In August 2016, a woman broke my heart. After two years of dating, during which time I convinced myself that she was the person I was destined to marry, she left me. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement. I was inconsolable, believing that my entire world had come crashing down around me. In the months that followed our failed romance, I lost my desire to write, to eat, and even to live.

Yet for all that I temporarily lost, I also learned…

I learned how to let go of the anger and depression that had consumed me, how to pick myself back up when life had knocked me down, and how to appreciate the true beauty of human compassion. But arguably the most important thing that I came to understand in my lowest moments was what it means to truly love someone. Twelve months ago I was hurting so badly, and yet all I wanted was for the woman who had left me to be happy. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that willingness to sacrifice my own happiness so that someone else could find theirs, was love.

Love is not about expensive gifts, loading pretty pictures on social media, or superficial bullshit. Love is the desire to go that extra mile just to make someone smile. It’s holding their hand when they hurt, and it’s the willingness to support them during difficult times.

Love is about finding the one that is worth suffering for, and taking every opportunity you can to show them how much they mean to you.

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When my former lover left me, I didn’t think that I would ever find someone who could make me feel like that again. So, I wrote a love story. In an effort to mend my wounded heart, I gathered up all of my pains and spilled them into a manuscript that is now awaiting a professional treatment from my editor.

But because I’m impatient, I’ve decided to do something monumentally stupid and share a draft of the opening chapter with my readers. At the bottom of this post there’s a link to a PDF download which contains a draft copy of the opening two thousand words of You. It’s not the finished product, and it’s rough as hell, but I’m still so proud to be able to share a little piece of me with those that wish to read it.

I did find another girl too…

I never thought that someone could take my breath away like she did. From the very first time I saw her I knew that she was special; like a spoonful of honey drizzled into my soul. She was the kind of person that only comes along once in a lifetime, but she decided that she didn’t want me the way that I wanted her. And despite what many of us would like to believe, you can’t convince someone to love you, or to ignore the voice in their head that tells them it’s the wrong time.

As much as it hurts to admit, I’m 99% sure that I was the right guy; I just found her at the wrong time. But if she does read this, I hope that she knows just how wonderful she truly is.

Opening Chapter – You

Lacuna

Some days are harder than others. There are times when I barely notice that you’re not around. Some days my life can seem so busy that I almost feel complete. I have a job that despite my shortcomings, I have managed to excel at. I have my writing; I run a website, and I wrote a book. It’s a love story. I think that you would like it. I have my family and friends too. I’m trying to be a better friend, brother and son, yet I know that I don’t always tell them that I love them as much as I should.

But there are also times when I reach for your hand, only to grasp at air. There are days like today when I’m surrounded by the people that I love, and they’re all married, partnered, or engaged. Some have families; or are expecting. And I’m standing there alone, wondering when I’ll meet you. Or if I ever will.

I used to think that we had met. I found a girl who was so beautiful that I knew I was in love from the first time that I saw her. She was smart too. She taught me about flowers, about having an open mind, and how wonderful it is to feel content. I tried so hard to make her love me; and even harder to make her stay. But she left. And she broke my heart. The final lesson that she ever taught me was that true love doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work, and sacrifice. She taught me that just because you love someone, it doesn’t mean that they know, that they’ll love you back, or that you’ll get the happy ending you have always longed for.

I wish that I at least knew your name. That way when I lay awake at night and picture our life together I could call you something other than Lacuna. It’s not even a real name. It’s just a word that I found in a book. But I chose it because it means a blank space; or a missing part. I’m twenty eight years old and I don’t have a woman to love, or to hold. There’s a blank space in my life that I wish I could fill; a missing part to the puzzle that is me.

I promise that when we meet I’ll do everything that I can to sweep you off your feet. I’ll spend every waking moment trying to take your breath away. 

I want to be your husband; and for you to be my wife. It sounds crazy because I don’t even know what you look like, but thinking about the day that I ask you to marry me brings a smile to my face. That doesn’t mean I want to be hasty and ask you as soon as we meet. I want us to take our time. I’ll ask you out on a date, and try and hold your hand. You’ll look at me as if I’m insane, and my heart will skip a beat as our fingers interlock. At the end of the evening I’ll drop you home and walk you to the front door, placing my hands on your hips as we kiss goodnight. It probably sounds silly to you. I know that people don’t do that kind of thing anymore. But there’s no need to rush something that is meant to last forever.

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I promise to take care of you too. I want to be there for you during the tough times as much as I want to share our moments of joy. When you’re sick I’ll tuck you in at night and wrap the blankets around your body before dimming the lights. I’ll make you soup when your throat hurts; or rub your stomach when you turn ill.  If you need to talk I’ll listen with great patience. And I’ll buy you flowers on your birthday, when you get a promotion, or just because I can.

When we have children, I’ll be the best damn father you have ever seen. I’ll change nappies, and teach them how to count, or to read and write. We’ll laugh and cry as they say their first words, and take their first steps. I’ll make sure that they grow up in a house filled with so much love that it radiates from their smile.

If we have a little girl I’ll learn how to tie pig-tails and play with dolls.  If we have a boy I’ll teach him to ride a bike and that real men treat women with respect. I’ll be at the front row of their sports carnivals, their spelling-bees, and graduations. You will too. We’ll be hand in hand, just like we were when I took your hand on our first date. We’ll be older by then; but just as in love as we have ever been.

Eventually we’ll grow old and retire. I’ll have to give away the job that I managed to excel at; I don’t know where you work, but I’m sure that you’ll be missed. We’ll travel the world, our faces cracking into a series of wrinkles as we smile gleefully at one another. When our hips give out and we can’t travel anymore we’ll find a little cottage to live in where we can form bizarre habits, like eating dinner while the sun is still up, and drinking so many cups of lukewarm tea that we spend most our nights dashing to the bathroom.

I know that one day I will find you. My parents always told me that good things come to those who wait. I just never thought that I would be twenty-eight and still searching for the woman that I grow old with. As a child, twenty-eight had seemed so old. I thought that I would have figured my life out by now. I wish I didn’t have to hurt as bad as I have in the past. I wish that I hadn’t had to lose the girl that I thought was you, and that I didn’t have to write a letter to someone that I’m still waiting to meet.

I don’t know where you are right now. Or if you’ll ever read this, but I want you to know that one day you are going to be my wife. And that I am going to love you, you are going to love me, and we are going to be happy. I promise to sweep you off your feet so that we can create a life so wonderful that your heart never aches again. When that day comes, I won’t need to call you Lacuna anymore. You won’t be a blank space, or a missing piece in my life. You’ll be my best friend; and I’ll be yours. We’ll be in love with one another, until the day that we die.

Endgame

“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I used to be really afraid of death. For as long as I can remember I have been petrified by the knowledge that life is finite, and that each passing year brings me closer to the inevitable moment when I pass away, drifting into a state of eternal nothingness as my body turns to dust. Throughout my teenage years and early twenties, I would lay awake at night crippled by fear as I contemplated my own morality and questioned what kind of legacy I would leave behind when I died. I suffered panic attacks, cried a lot, and often felt isolated and alone.

At times my anxiety was so great that I was afraid of my own birthday. The annual event marked another step towards my death, and as I grew from a boy, into a teen, and finally into a man, the fear that I felt towards aging grew with me. I became afraid of the world, and petrified of leaving it. I was so fearful of being forgotten that I turned to writing as a means of creating a legacy that would allow me to be remembered long after I was gone.

Writing became an act of solace, and a means to combat my anxieties and fears…

…At least initially anyway. But as the years progressed and my creative skillset improved, I allowed myself to be driven by my fears and wrote with a maniacal obsession that became all consuming. Before too long I wasn’t just writing to fight fear; I was actively seeking to create anarchy inside of my own head because I believed that in doing so I could push myself to become a greater writer, and a stronger man. In my desire to outlive myself through my works I sacrificed friendships, destroyed careers, lost the love of my life, and became so closed off to the world that my own family questioned whether or not I loved them.

Eventually I became so caught up in this cyclic state of fear and anxiety that I pushed myself too far. In an effort to overcome the demons I was actively creating and allowing to live inside of my head, I lost sight of who I really am. I became angry and bitter, and while I wasted years believing that I was becoming a man; the truth is that I have spent my life hiding behind masks of wolves and world eaters while trying to convince those around me that I am strong. But I have been weak; and the only person that I ever fooled was myself.

Since The Renegade Press began four years ago I have received an endless stream of correspondence from readers who have been genuinely concerned for my health and wellbeing. I have always written from a place of pain because I thought that to be a great writer I needed to accentuate and exacerbate the fractures within me. But my loved ones and my audience saw that I was capable of being so much more than a bitterly angry little boy with a quick wit and a tendency to lash out at anyone and anything that he feared, or didn’t understand. When they looked at me they never saw the strength of a wolf that I envisioned they did. They saw a man who was hiding from his own insecurities and lying to himself.

They were right. And I was wrong.

Anyone who has been following this site for a little while will know that a few months ago the woman that I want to grow old with walked out of my life. She left because the man that she fell in love with had become so caught up in a frenzied desire to become a wolf and a world eater, and to fight away his fears that he let her down. Despite loving Sofie with an endless depth, I was so driven by fear and fuelled by a horrid desire to become more that I made her feel alone and question just how much I actually cared.

I cared more than she ever really knew. The proudest moment of my life was when I published my debut novel in February 2015 and she gave me a hand written letter telling me how proud she was, and how much she loved me. It wasn’t until she left that I realised I had spent almost two years pushing myself relentlessly to produce another manuscript just so that we could experience that moment together again. In doing so I destroyed everything that we had, and everything that she had expressed within that letter. I thought that in order to make her love me I needed to continue to allow my fears to drive me to become better. But I didn’t. I had my entire world in front of me, and she already loved me. I was just too stupid to realise it. I still have that letter; and I still read it from time to time.

Since she left I have walked through my own version of hell; taking time away from writing to rediscover myself and put to rest the horrible traits that I had allowed to fester within my heart for far too long. In doing so I have discovered an inner strength that I never knew I was capable of possessing. It hasn’t been easy, and I still think about her every day, but I have had to let go of the person that I’m going to love until the day that I die. At the same time, I have learned that despite best efforts from both parties, my sophomore novel War will no longer be released by Meizius Publishing.

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At first I crumbled, and I cried. I have spent years wanting nothing more than to marry the girl who stole my heart from the very first moment that I saw her, and fought desperately to recapture that moment we shared together by producing another book. But losing her and learning that I will be parting ways with my publisher has made me stop for the first time in almost twenty-eight years and actually question just what the fuck I am actually doing with my life. In doing so I have come to realise that I’m no longer afraid of death; I’m afraid of experiencing an un-lived life.

As I walked through the hell inside of me and experienced the cacophony of disharmony that had consumed my mind, I realised that I was allowing myself to be driven by fear, rather than being led by my dreams.

I know that sounds like a bunch of bullshit written by a man trying to open up himself and be vulnerable with the world he lives in. But what I am trying to say is that I have finally figured out the answers to those harrowing questions we all ask ourselves, and which until just recently have eluded me: What is the purpose of my life? And what is my endgame?

The first question was actually surprisingly easy to answer. The purpose of my life, and yours, and everyone else’s is this: to be happy; no matter what happiness looks or feels like to you. The objective of the entire human existence is to be happy; and to be led by your dreams, rather than pushed by your fears. Since realising this and letting go of my fear of death I have learned how to smile again, and the importance of slowing down to enjoy life for what it is. I have come to the realisation that I don’t need to pen a best seller in order to consider myself a successful writer; by having just one person read this blog, or pick up my book, I have already exceeded my own wildest dreams.

The desire to drive myself to the dark places I once longed for is gone. Because of this I’m not the man I was a few years, or even a few months ago. I’m not a wolf or an eater of worlds, nor am I ever angry anymore. I’m happy; and for the first time in my life I can say that I am genuinely proud of the man that I have become, and will continue to become from here on out.

As far as my endgame is concerned… She first appeared on this website as the inspiration behind a post titled Landscape, and is the only woman that I will ever write about. She will continue to be the most exquisitely beautiful person in my life until the day that I die, and although I don’t know if I’ll ever see Sofie again, I still consider myself the luckiest man in the world. Because of her I know how it feels to fall madly in love with another human being, and to want to spend every day of the rest of your life making their world just a little bit brighter.

I would throw away everything for that girl. I would give up writing, pass up all my earthly possessions and walk through hell every single day from now until eternity, just to see her smile.

The eater of worlds is dead; killed off by his own fears and insecurities. But in his place stands the real Chris Nicholas; the one who became lost inside of his own head for a period of time and forgot what matters most in his life. That man is a writer, a lover, a brother, a son, and a friend. And most importantly, he is happy.

I don’t fear death anymore; I fear looking back on my time here on this earth and realising that I missed out on so many wonderful opportunities because of such a naïve notion of allowing apprehension of the inevitable to destroy the wonderful gift of life that I have been presented. I don’t want to grow old having squandered my time, or having lived an un-lived life.  No matter what happens from this moment onwards; whether I ever publish another book, or have the opportunity to grow old with the woman with the little blue hearts; I can say that I am happy, I am proud of the man that I am becoming, and that I know just how wonderful it feels to experience true love.

After my time walking through the hell in me I have learned not to be driven by fear, and that my dreams are as simple as they are powerful. At just twenty eight years of age I have my happiness and I know my endgame. What else could a man ever want?

Devil

A few months ago my partner and I bought a puzzle. We were in a bookstore stocking up on novels and she turned to me and said that she’d love to buy a puzzle and spend some time sitting down as a couple and putting it together. Ecstatic just to be spending time with her, I agreed, and we brought home one thousand little cardboard shapes that when aligned together in the correct sequence would show a view of the Amalfi coastline. I thought it would be easy. And that it would be fun. But while she could effortlessly match pieces together and allow the picture to take shape, I struggled horribly just to find two interconnected pieces, swore a lot, and eventually gave up.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but that puzzle wasn’t just a way for us to spend time together, it was a symbol that represented my life, who I was, who I am supposed to be, and just how much I love the girl who sat patiently with me while I steamed with frustration at my inability to perform the most simplistic of tasks.

Agh. I need to stop for a second, and just get something off of my chest… Before I go any further I just want to acknowledge that what I am about to say is going to hurt so fucking much. By the end of this post I’ll be an emotional wreck. I’m about to tell you that I screwed up. Bad. And that I’m a fake. Because despite all of the pretentious bullshit that I post on this site, I’ve only just figured out who it is that I really am, and it took losing the woman that I want to spend my life with to realise that.

For twenty-seven years I have been trying to piece together the puzzle of Chris Nicholas. During that time I have been sitting in the darkness of my bedroom staring down at thousands of little cardboard shapes spread across the floor that define who I am, struggling to make sense of how they all fit together. I have been a son, a brother, a writer, a friend, a student, work colleague, and so much else. Yet I have never really understood how one piece of my life was supposed to fit into the next.

And then I met Sofie. I met this beautiful woman who was so much smarter than I could ever be. And before I even asked for her help, she came into my bedroom, switched on the light and sat down opposite me and helped me to start sorting through the little pieces of me that were scattered across the floor. I watched in amazement as she found pieces of who I am that were connected, and slotted them together, slowly allowing a picture of my life to take shape.

It took a long time; two years in fact for her and I to work together and take the little cardboard shapes and put them together, but as each piece fell into place I began to recognize the picture that was taking shape. It wasn’t really the image that I had imagined, but who was I to question the universe and the way that my life was destined to unfold?

I saw a wolf, bearing its fangs, with what looked like the world clutched between its paws. It looked strong; fearsome even, and I saw Sofie standing beside him with a look of astonishment on her face. As I looked at the picture positioned between us on the floor, something inside of me changed and I became the beast that I saw staring up at me from the half completed puzzle. I saw a monster, and I became him. And I have never fucked up so badly in my life.

I started to call myself a wolf; and I became headstrong and stubborn. I saw the world held within the paws of the beast inside the puzzle, and I tried to follow suit. I pursued my writing with reckless abandon, amassing an audience and producing a lot of self-indulgent bullshit. And all the while, Sofie watched me with a slightly bemused look, and kept putting together pieces of my puzzle as though she didn’t understand what I had become, or why I seemed so angry.

Then, just over a month ago she left. She told me that she was tired, and that I had let her down. So she stood up, and walked out of my life, taking a single piece of the puzzle we had worked so hard to create with her. I cried a lot that day. And I’ve cried every day since. Because when she left I stood up and I shifted myself into her place, and looked down at the puzzle of my life from where she had been sitting and realized that we had created an ambigram; an image that when looked upon from different angles shows an entirely different picture.

Sofie wasn’t putting together a puzzle of a wolf, or a world eater, and we were never putting together my puzzle; it was ours. From where she had been sitting the image that stared up at her wasn’t of a vicious beast bearing its fangs; it was me: Chris Nicholas, down on one knee with a smile of pure joy spread across my face. In my hands was a box, not the world, and inside of that box was a piece of jewelry designed to be worn on her finger that said “I want to spend my life with you.” From this angle she didn’t look bemused, astonished, or afraid.  She was happy, and her lips were pursed together as though she was about to make this version of me the happiest man in the world by uttering one simple word.

From where she had been sitting, our puzzle was complete; except for the final piece that she had taken with her. I had spent two years looking at what we were creating from the wrong angle, and while she was piecing together an image of a future filled with happiness, my own stupidity made me believe that in order to provide for her I needed to embrace the devil inside of me.

For the past month I have spent my time sitting in the spot where Sofie used to sit, staring down at the image of her and I with a huge smile spread across my face, and tears streaming down my cheeks. It’s a beautiful image, and one that makes my heart flutter. When I close my eyes and imagine the future it looks just like the image in the puzzle of us, and knowing that is so bitter-sweet. Sofie is the only woman I will ever write about; the only woman whose achievements I will ever celebrate as greater than my own; and the only woman that I would ever want to love and spend my entire life with.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to see her again, but I hope and I pray every day that eventually our worlds will collide one more time and she can come and sit down on the floor beside me and place the final piece of our puzzle; the one that represents my heart, into the image of her and I. If that day never arrives… Well, at least I can say that I spent two wonderful years with the woman that I love more than anything. The memories that we created together will last a lifetime, and the love that I have for her will continue long after she has forgotten about the time we spent piecing together the puzzle of our lives.

Now that I have seen life from the other side of the ambigram, I know that I don’t want to be the devil anymore. I want to be the man in the picture that Sofie has always been able to see. The hopelessly devoted romantic, down on his knee, allowing himself to be totally vulnerable in front of the woman that he loves more than he has ever loved writing, or anything else. I screwed up because my perspectives were all wrong; I was never meant to be a wolf, I was only ever meant to be a man, and a lover to the most incredible woman that I have ever met.

I’m writing this to say that I’m letting go of the love of my life for a little while. Because as cliche as it sounds, sometimes when you love something (or someone) you have to set it free. But there will not be a day that passes where I don’t look at the almost completed puzzle of us and whisper a silent prayer that she comes back and we finish what we started together. I have never wanted anything like I want a life with her; and I have never been so willing to be vulnerable and unafraid to embrace who I am. In the past month I have realised how wonderful my life is, and how hopelessly in love I am. For the first time in my life I know exactly who I am, and exactly who I want to devote my life to. And while letting go hurts like hell, I have never been more proud the man that I have become, or more determined to be the person that I should have always been. 

The Woman With The Little Blue Hearts

I never really thought that I would understand what it felt like to be happy. When I first started blogging I was a broken man who believed that my time on this earth would be spent wallowing in self-pity as I created manuscripts riddled with despair. But two years ago everything changed. I met you. And you became the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the love of my life: the person that I would fall onto my own sword a thousand times over to protect. You are the woman with the matching little blue hearts tattooed on her ankles; a soul of beauty, compassion and intellect that leaves me weak at the knees.

When we met I was fractured; a horrible man hell bent on his own self-destruction. But from the very first time I placed my hands on your hips and watched as you smiled at me and tucked your hair behind your ears, I knew that you had stolen my heart. I should never have treated you so poorly. I should never have brought tears to your eyes.  I was a fool, but you helped me to become a man. You have always been so patient with me; even when I fucked things up over and over again.

I can never repay you for the kindness that you have given me. You have stood by me through the passing of friends, the chasing of dreams, and those horrible months when I thought that I was dying.  People often say that in their darkest days their loved ones walk beside them. But you never have. In my lowest moments you have carried me; you have been the blood that courses through my veins, and the sun that lights up my world.

You have suffered in silence for so long while I searched for happiness in all the wrong places, and for that I am sorry. I thought that becoming a literary superstar, or landing a new job would make me feel complete. But everything that I have ever needed has been right in front of me since the very first day we met. All I have ever needed is you: the woman with the little blue hearts tattooed on her ankles. You complete me. You make me smile, and you are the most important thing in my world. I would give up everything that I have, throw away my successes, and lay down my pen, just to hold your hand, kiss your lips, and hear you say that you love me.

I want to grow old with you. I want to become your fiancé, your husband, and eventually the father of your children. I want to watch as those little blue hearts fade over time as our years together pass. I want to devote my life to you, and spend the next eighty years repaying you for all the love and kindness that you have given me. I want to kiss you before you roll over and drift off into slumber, or hear you tell me that I chew too loud, or that my clothes don’t match, or that I need to start cleaning up after myself.

I want to give to you the happiness that you have given me. I’m tired of being a wolf. I’m weary of being an eater of worlds. I want to be the apple of your eye, and the man who stands proudly beside you while you achieve your dreams.

But talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. I have told you all of this before. So let me sink to my knees, or fall on my sword and swallow my pride. Let me show you that I want to be yours. Let me prove to you that for the rest of my life, I want to be the man hopelessly in love with the woman with the little blue hearts tattooed on her ankles.

Philocaly

You once told me that every single man, woman, and child lives in their own unique version of reality. You said that the way in which we interpret the world around us creates a realism that is uniquely ours. It cannot be replicated, nor shared. These idiosyncrasies of the heart and mind shape our thoughts and feelings, defining who we are. I cannot see the world through the eyes of another. I can never witness the beauty of an unfurling rose, or observe the elegance of a constellation of stars as they do. I cannot feel what they feel, love what they love, or loathe the things that they have learned to despise.

Nor would I ever want to.

For in my reality you are beautiful, and you are perfect. In my reality I could never imagine loving anyone like I love you. I have tried so many times to immortalize you in my words, spending hours trying to capture your beauty through prose. I have laboriously crafted allegories and odes written just for you, but nothing I do ever seems good enough.  How could I ever do you justice? How could the words of a man ever encapsulate your magnificence and splendor? Every time I try to write for you I conjure images of unrestrained inhibitions and lust. But my love for you runs so much deeper than flesh.

My love for you is a love of beauty; the affliction of philocaly.

I place my hand upon your cheek and feel myself becoming lost in your eyes. You are the universe; the constellation of stars that guide my heart. I am the intrepid traveler enamoured with the endlessness of your grace. No man could ever love you as much as I do. I have pined for you for so long, and yet my hunger for you has not wearied with time. With each passing embrace my hands have grown more adept at holding you, and our souls have become intertwined.

Your body has always been a curvaceous landscape that I have longed to explore. I crave your sensuality now more than I ever have before. But where my hands once trembled with excitement as I fumbled and fondled, I have learned how to kiss and tease, until exhilaration causes your skin to prickle and turn to goose bumps. I have learned how to place my hands upon your hips, and to interlock my fingers with yours as I hold them above your head. I have studied the faintness with which your breath catches in your throat as euphoria floods through you in waves.

I want to hold you, and make love to you. I want to feel your breath against my skin as you press your lips against my neck and whisper my name. I want to uncover your innermost thoughts, and take away all of your pains.  I long to feel my fingertips trace faint lines against your hips.  Let me confide in you; let me jettison all of my insecurity and fear into the cosmos until there is nothing left but you and I. Let me feel your heart beat as you writhe beneath my sheets. I want to fulfil your desires and become your reason to breathe.

In my reality you are beautiful, and you are perfect. I am a man awestruck my philocaly. You are the woman that I desire: the one who I have chosen to give my heart, and my body to for all of eternity. Do with them as you please.

 

Redamancy

I rest my hand against your chest and feel it swell with a sharp intake of breath. Your skin is warm against my palm as I map the contours of your flesh. I marvel at the symmetry of your breasts; tracing my fingers around their curves and feel your heart beat against them. I breathe in your scent and watch you exhale as your lips break into a smile and your toes curl beneath the sheets. Your allure is intoxicating; I am inebriated by your scent. My hands tremble whenever you leave me. My soul feels bare when you are gone.

I move towards you and hold my lips an inch from yours. I want to stare into your eyes and peer into your soul. I want to understand the divinity that lies beneath the exquisiteness of your skin. Your eyes flicker across my features; your chest rises and falls with every breath. We are two lovers in the throes of passion who have become lost in each other’s eyes.

But there is more to my love than a mere carnal hunger. My yearning is far too intense to culminate in a fleeting moment of physical release. You are ingrained into my soul; as much a part of me as the hands that caress you. You are my reason to breathe. The reason to rise after I fall. To have and to hold you; to kiss you, is more than this lost soul ever deserved.

I stare into your eyes and pray for redamancy. A love returned in full. I long to know that I have captured your heart just as surely as you have captured mine.

I press my lips against yours and feel our souls collide. I pine for you. My heart skips a beat when I hear you breathe my name. I am man lost for words. How can I ever show you that you complete me? How can I ever repay you for capturing my heart and setting my soul free?

You are the exquisite landscape that I long to explore; the only woman I have ever wanted laying beneath my sheets. Our fingers interlock and you close your eyes and sigh. I kiss your neck, hold your hands above your head and feel your weight press against my hips. Let me be the man of your dreams; let me fulfil your wildest desires. I could die knowing that I had lost myself within you, never to be found again. I could spend a lifetime worshiping your flesh or studying the intricacies of your heart and mind; and when the angels come to claim my soul they would see that had never truly been mine.

I watch you sleep beside me and feel your warmth as my lips press against your spine and kiss the dimples of the slender muscles in your shoulders. You murmur and mumble, stirring lethargically as you dream. The tranquilness of slumber has never looked so divine. The peacefulness of fantasies has never been so alluring.

The act of of loving one who loves you in return. Of lying awake at night to protect you while you dream. It’s a romance that reaches beyond our physical chemistry and plucks at the mystic chords of my heart. I am a man intoxicated by your beauty and at a loss for words. I will never be able to articulate my love for you. There are no words sweet enough to capture the elegance and sophistication of your splendour. But in my romance induced drunkenness I can promise you my heart. I can give my life to you and pray for redamancy. I can hold my breath as I watch you sleep and dream of the day that I become ingrained into your soul, just as you have become ingrained into mine.

You

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. That’s what they told you from the very start. If an author pines for you, you’ll be immortalized in their words. Your eloquence will be captured in their prose as they strum at the chords of your heart and kiss the innermost chambers of your naked soul. So let me take off your clothes and take you in my arms.

Let me enfold you. Let me take your heart in my hands and feel it beat my name. Let me be the air that fills your aching lungs and swells within your chest. I’ll breathe life into your soul and be the man who basks in a beauty far greater than his own. Throw your bones against mine and feel the solidarity of my embrace. Let my kiss your skin, stroke your hair and settle your racing mind.

You are poetry in motion; a landscape of flesh so exquisite that to lay my trembling hands upon you causes my heart to skip a beat. I am nothing more than a foolhardy wanderer determined to claim you as his own. You are the fluidity and grace that course through my life as surely as blood passes through my veins. So let me enfold you. Let me take away your pain.

Feel my hands on your hips, my fingers tracing the contours of your curves. I’ll kiss your dimples and run my fingers through your hair. Feel my lips on your neck as I whisper my hopes, dreams and desires against your skin. No words could ever describe the beauty of your cheeks as they burst to life with a rush of blood to the head. I want you to lose yourself in my eyes. I want to be your reason to breathe.

Let me feel you writhe beneath my sheets as I take your breast in the palm of my hand or interlock your fingers with mine. Let me devour and defile you as I pin your hands above your head and leave teeth marks against your skin.

You are divinity incarnate: a woman of heavenly beauty. Angelic in poise and grace. So let me encompass you in my arms and show you what I have yearned for. Let me worship the ground beneath your feet.

Embrace my warmth as I set your world on fire. Watch the flames of my passion rise and fall with every kiss and every touch. Feel the euphoria wash across your skin and cause your hairs to stand on end as my hands grace your delicate surface. I’ll tease your goose bumps and watch them prickle beneath my fingertips.

Let me peel back the layers of your soul and quell your innermost fears. I long to make love to your flesh. But it’s your mind that I crave the most.

So open your heart and take me inside. Tell me your innermost insecurities and fears. Let me take away your pain and carve my name into the chambers of your soul. Let my love enfold you as I capture your magnificence in my prose. You are poetry in motion; the apple of a writer’s eye. So throw your bones against mine until we become one. Let me take your heart in my hands, let me feel it beat my name.

Crime Without Punishment

You broke into my chest and stole my heart. You looked me in the eye, asked me to take your hands and then robbed me blind. Like a thief in the night you moved so silently; climbed through the boarded up windows of my soul and pillaged from within. You should have been punished! You should have been reprimanded and rebuked! But yours was a crime without punishment. You stole my heart, and all I could do was watch as held it in your trembling hands and told me to trust that you would keep it safe.

I told you that your body was a landscape. I was supposed to be the vicious world eater with an insatiable lust to destroy the map. But now I feel you inside me; feel my heart beating your name and know that I have been bested by the contours I fought valiantly to conquer. I scaled your breasts, left my teeth marks on your neck and impressions of my hands on your hips. But these marks were only skin deep; you broke beneath the surface and saw the nakedness of I. You forced your way into a place no other has ever reached and carved your name into the fleshy chamber of my humanity. You took a soul plagued by anger and stole from it. You took away the anger; plundered from the well of bitter thoughts. You should have been punished. You should have been admonished.

But how could I ever hurt someone so darling? How could I ever dream of stringing you up like a thief and tearing apart your innocence? Your crime was one committed through best intentions. A soul descended from the heavens, dragged through the mud and tarnished by a wolf. I could have been your fall from grace. But instead you lead me to the waters of my rebirth. You stripped me bare and asked me to bathe until I was washed clean. So I sank beneath the surface until I was engulfed by a world so calming, so wondrously silent and tranquil.

Alone with my thoughts I could think of nothing but you. I could feel you with me; imagine your fingers interlaced between mine. I was the devil. I was the world eater and wolf. But you tore apart all the misguided preconceptions I had of you and I. You showed me in the silence beneath the waters just how beautiful we could be.

I emerged born again; infatuated and no longer alone. I had never imagined I could be so contented; so smitten and besotted. I tried to fight it. I wrapped my fingers around your throat, left bite marks and bruises on your legs. But I couldn’t fight the remorse or shake the feelings of regret. The thief who stole my heart deserved more than I could ever give. You broke open the vault of my heart and found it barely beating within.

You took it in your hands, stared deep into the eyes of a wounded beast and nurtured it back to health. You committed a crime without punishment. You stole my heart to set it free. You should have been chided, strung up and ousted for your devious ways. But all I could do is stare into your eyes as you asked me to trust you and place my hands in yours. You stole my heart, now it’s yours to nurture and keep.

I am at your mercy. A wolf swallowing his own pride. I am vulnerable and exposed. You are the thief who committed the ultimate crime.

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