"I love you", leaving the poem behind. (LONG)

"Leave your bullshit on the net, your prose to 'thy rosy coloured cheeks' or the 'twilight in my eyes'. For once don't use a metaphor, don't use alliteration, don't make hearing your words a chore. Tell me straight, without bending words or comparing me to a 'summer's day'. Tell me without the word love that you love me."


Whenever I lay my head down to sleep, in a dark and quiet room. I picture you. I think of times, of places, of events, when we were together. I try and remember your smell, your touch, your look. Your smile, oh that smile. Your wry humour that is 9 parts angelic, and 1 sultry.

When I awake, next to my alarm clock is your photo. This is so far the only effective method I have ever found of waking me up. Once I see it, I cannot go back to sleep. I lie there in complete calm, thinking about you.

I take showers to relax, sometimes twice a day. It's louder in the shower, and my thoughts reflect this. Rather than thinking about past experiences, I think about upcoming ones, or even fantasise the future. I think eating dinner with you that night, or seeing you at work later that week, or 5 years down the road telling our kids how we met.

Sometimes my thoughts go the other way. What would happen if... If you died? If we broke up? If you were ill? It may sound depressing, but it's "emergency planning". Who would I have to kill to save your life? What cure for cancer would I have to find? Clearly a fantastical belief, but to be truthful, it's thoughts that I think. I've contemplated how far I would go to save you, and no boundary I've found yet I wouldn't attempt to overcome.

Not even death. If your atheist self died, my atheist self would have no qualms in dying too. Not from grief or suicide. I'd do so clearly and quickly. If there was an afterlife, I'd follow you. I'd be compelled to. I've thought of 'what if' there really was a heaven and hell, who hasn't (even us atheists!). And if I had to overthrow Satan to get to you I would. Or God... It's in the fantastical that I push the boundaries. Would I do this or that? This or that could be anything. Any pain, any impossibility, and unethical encounter. And I've not thought of one that would make me second guess getting to you.

Out of all the times and things we do together, I love dancing with you the most. It might be the alcohol, because as I know you, it takes a LOT of alcohol to get me to dance... but, that's because of embarrassment. But when we're dancing together, in a crowd of a hundred, and I feel I'm alone with you. You smile and laugh and whip my face with your hair every time you turn to fast. Your breasts press into my chest or back, and in a non-sexual way I enjoy it because it's as close as you can get to me at that moment. I remember one time I could feel your heart beating in my chest. The vibrations boom boom boom boom. It was pathetic at keeping beat to the song, but it kept a different beat.

And yet, after all these words above. All these clean English written feelings, I've still not grazed the surface of my feelings. You inhibit my world, both conscious and unconscious. The reason I write prose is the same reason every poet that's ever walked the earth does, to try and find those perfect words to express their feelings. They did it for their loves, I do it for mine. But we are all destined to fail.

The truth is, no words will ever express the feelings we have. Nothing can. You could use every word in the dictionary a thousand times over and it still wouldn't be right.

I cannot truly express my feelings in words, or in actions, or in prose, or flowers, or chocolates, or in doing the laundry on the weekend. There are no words, there are no actions. My feelings for you are beyond all that, and no 3 word sentence like "I love you" will ever do justice to it.

But you'll have to accept my inadequacy of expression. My deeds, my words, my voice and presence, for my life remaining, will have to 'do' to show how I feel. Starting now.

I love you.