About that barge at sea…

Baby.

Maybe I missed something, but…

If you think of defending your heart and maybe setting up little tests for me as “lashing out”…

Well. Then I think you're gonna end up surprised.

Surprised by the fact that I have the patience to set up my little camp outside those walls, with a little tent and a little gas stove and some water and food and hold my own tiny little siege for… basically forever, if I have to. Maybe, just maybe with a tiny little hammer and tiny little chisel to gently, slowly work my way through, a micrometer at a time–nothing that'll hurt, nothing that you'll ever even notice, not until it's too late and I'm in.

Surprised maybe that I'll spend my evenings, as I take a break from chipping so slowly away, working through any little test or puzzle you put before me, hypothetical or real. Applying that very same calm and patience. Finding all the angles, scratching my chin while puzzling out how to wrap my love around whatever it is.

Surprised, it would sometimes seem, that I actually do love you. But, god, I hate to think what the world has done with you to make you doubt it so. I don't know a lot, but I know enough to be dangerous, as we both seem to like to say. Maybe the tiniest hair more than you think. Probably whole oceans-worth less than I think.

But the thing of it is is that I do. Love you.

With my entire heart and soul and each and every atom of my body, every breath I breathe in and every breath I breathe out.

It's all for you.

And I'm sorry if maybe when my brain is fried I maybe might make you feel a bit sad about it, but that's never my intent, it is never my intent to do anything except make you feel warm and comforted and to hopefully just give you one more reason to be glad you're alive.

Because I am. God, so glad. I know, I don't think it was really on the table but baby… you were right about one thing: there was a before you, and there is an after you.

And I don't ever, ever want to go back to before you.

Because you are the light in my eyes, the wind in my sails.

You spark joy. In me. Constantly.

Even when you doubt yourself. Even when you doubt you can.

And, baby. All I want is to be your home. That's it. It doesn't have to be clean, it doesn't have to be messy, it can be anything you like. It just has to be you.

I just wanna be home. For you.

And maybe one day maybe I can.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

Yours.