The Gift of You

(For someone breathing within the world this morning.)

I haven't been able to sleep. What you said, perhaps just offhandedly, perhaps not really caring at all, has me wide awake lost in those silly impossible dreams and longings that overtake my being so often. You cannot know how desperately I want to belong to someone I want. You don't know how long I've been searching. It's been decades of that sweet sudden delicious hope that always begins with four little words, "Could it possibly be..." You said you wanted me to be with no other now. To be with only you. I almost too immediately affirmed my yes to you. Then you said Don't lie to me. And you disappeared, and of course there's nothing wrong with that. I don't know you at all yet. I don't know what you do with your time and how you live your life. And you don't know me either. You can't possibly know how badly I hope you meant what you said. That you might actually care. I'm waiting so foolishly to see that little D for Delivered on your Kik to change to the R, to see that you've opened it, that you've read the words I hope will make you want me still, as you claim you do, and how you've blown me away with the fact you actually chose to seek out my virtual presence after the fact you've already had me. You don't know what I would give up to be yours. You don't know what kind of woman I would become if it meant you were the one I strove to be better for... And I will never ask for you to belong to me. I can't. It's enough you've claimed you'll be coming back when you can. It's more than enough for me. I've never experienced anything more incredible than what went on between you and me that night... The strange wonderful giving and receiving, how you answered things in me I never knew someone could answer, I never knew I was even asking. I don't care if you pursue other women. I want you to be free. Because of certain factors... I don't ever want to inhibit your life and ventures into experience. I want you to come back to me because you need me, because you feel for me something like the soft hideous aching warmth which has consumed me all night for you and made me restless and impatient to know if my dreams will finally, after almost 43 years, come true. If you knew exactly what I'm feeling you'd probably run. I of course will never let you know about what's burning and roiling in my desperate heart tonight. But I'm waiting. I want my gift. I've been waiting for so long. I don't care if the package isn't ​wrapped prettily or there are parts missing or the directions have been lost. I want my present. I want my gift. The gift of you.