The day after my birthday this year, I sat at my desk, flipped open my laptop and once again touched the sore spot in my chest that wanted love, had always wanted love, and was close to giving up.

I’d just gotten out of a toxic relationship and run away back home to NYC to remember who I was. I’m back on the left coast, in a much different place, but still these words I wrote months ago bring me to tears with their real longing:

I’m desperate.

I’ve wandered the earth for three decades, in the biggest cities, crying alone.

I had the sort of childhood suckitude that made me leave fake suicide letters in the living room on a notepad (so I could write revisions as they came), naming the kids at school who made me feel like shit and blaming my parents, and willing my prized possessions to my friends.

Not because I wanted to die. I didn’t. I wanted to live so badly.

But because I wanted my parents to be sorry.

Now you.

You are the one who understands that recovering from this, crawling out of this is an act as close to God as I can get.

I want you, who will look at me like a miracle, and reflect it every day in your eyes.

I want to be the best thing to ever happen to you.

I want you who can love hard and call every day and stay.

I want the one who will grab tighter and hug closer when storm season comes.

I want man hands. Car-fix hands.

Intimacy.

I want the long kiss every day.

And you must know this:

I don’t have any more left in me.

I gave it all to the last one, the last year, the last decade of loves that drained and fed me.

I’m sorry.

I’m empty.

Yet I want you to come anyway.

I want you to fill me with light until my f*cked up, curled-on-the-ground heart can unfurl once again.

Because once you unlock me—and only you can unlock this—one big ball of The Best Love Of Your Life will hurtle at you.

And I want you to catch it.

I want you so strong you stand in the middle of it. Unflinching.

If you’re truly you, you’ll be able to do this.

You’ll welcome it.

You’ll take this hurricane for me.

For your love of me.

I want you to spend your life with me. And consider it your purpose and your meaning.

I want us to die within breaths of each other. Holding hands.

Be desperate, for this is love and it comes only once.

I won’t try anymore after this.

So be it.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Author: Sophia Chang

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Frederico Lenzi at Pixoto