Perhaps it was a moment, but it still tasted of forever.

Perhaps time is the only logical measure of love.

But perhaps, when it comes to love, time only matters in terms of kairos—that fleeting moment of opportunity—because for those meant to be together, time is inconsequential. The heart doesn’t watch a clock.

I don’t know how long we will have. I hope I get to see you age with happiness, but there is always a chance that we have already shared our last kiss. Yet in my heart, it feels as if we still have an endless amount of memories to be made. Time feels like it’s on our side, stretching out before us infinitely.

Yet in spite of this, it sometimes feels easier to believe that today is all we have—because I never expected to meet someone like you, and I sometimes have a hard time imagining that you would actually choose to spend your best days by my side.

I believe in love, in you, and in the way the dappled sunlight makes dreams seem possible, but I’ve never had someone stay, never experienced what forever truly felt like—even as others whispered of it.

If we had forever, I’d like to show you that you are enough just as you are in this moment—not when you have life figured out and categorically arranged, but now and in this moment. I’d like to be your peace when the rest of life spins you in chaos, and if it seems like the odds are stacked against you, I will be there reminding you of your greatness because you forget it at times.

I’d like to wait up for you to come home, simply because it was me you were returning to.

If we had forever, I’d never take a moment for granted—each morning I’d open my eyes to see you beside me would feel as blessed as the first.

I’d continually delight in nibbling your neck as the sunlight traced its way through the shades and across our bodies as we rose to start our day. I might even tangle my long legs with yours, making us both late for our days as I feel you slide inside of me—yet I wouldn’t care about anything other than these moments we steal from the rest of the world.

If we had forever, there would be times when we would argue or disagree—even if I can’t imagine that now. Even then, I would delight in apologizing, walking up to you resting my head against your strong chest, letting the tendrils of my long hair tickle your arm. I’d wrap my arms around you to kiss and make up, allowing whatever we had let distract us from what matters to disappear into the spaces between your lips and mine.

I’d like to travel with you and sit underneath the moon by a far and distant sea while I rest my head on your shoulder and my fingers draw circles along your bare arms. If we had an endless amount of time, I’d like to see the way the light reflects off your eyes as you’re seeing someplace new for the first time—I’d gather armfuls of firsts for us to decorate our life with, each one more beautiful than the last.

But I’d also like to stay home with you. I’d like to cook dinner with you, barefoot, with music playing, as I’d move around the kitchen in nothing but my silk slip with the blue flowers on it. Maybe it would be a quiet night and we’d sit on the porch tucked within the trees, the sounds of a summer night playing background music to the story of us.

Maybe we would drape ourselves across the couch in front of a movie, or we’d simply stay on the porch and wait for Luna to once again begin her dance with the stars across the darkened sky. We might hear the owls calling to one another in the woods, or maybe it would just be the sound of our whispers as we moved our lips over collarbones, cheeks, shoulders, and the softness of the other’s lips.

If we had forever, I’d take you into my world and spin poems of moonlight and fireflies and enchanted forests until maybe you’d begin to see that the magic, grown within love, can feel even more real than life itself.

I’d bother you I’m sure, but only in that way that someone we truly care about can. You’d probably even roll your eyes at me because I had stopped to take off my shoes as we walked down the street together, holding them in my hand instead.

There are many things that I would like to do with you if we had forever, but most of all, it would just be to love you. Not because you do or say all the things my heart wants to hear, but because your soul has always called mine back home, despite any distance that has tried to etch itself into the space of our love.

I suppose there could be a million moments of quiet where everything was just as we had wanted. There might be hundreds of adventures around the world and through each other’s souls. Mornings that drip in the iridescent hope of a new day, and nights that soothed the soul like the scent of warm vanilla—but, that is only if we had forever.

For right now, in this moment, all I know is that nothing is guaranteed, nothing is promised except that we owe it to ourselves to continually love as if it’s our last day—even if we do end up stringing them together for eternity.

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Author: Kate Rose
Image: Pixabay
Editor: Callie Rushton
Copy Editor: Danielle Beutell
Social Editor: Catherine Monkman