If someone ever says "I love you," I would pause and ask: Do you know me though? Do you know the chapels, the gardens and the graveyards that set the landscape of my soul? Do you know the lights that flicker my life to existence, or the storms that blow out the candles? Do you know when my laughter has echoed the loudest or the silence the tears left me in?

Here, I pause again. Do you need to know them all? I'm not asking myself to polish my edges so that they don't crack you open. On the contrary, I'm asking: Do I have to test your affections by ripping my bandages off and expecting you to walk away? A part of me says that affection that hasn't seen all of me isn't real. I don't know what to call it. But it must not be love. And in thinking so, I fear I'm limited. Limited in the belief that anything less should be turned away.

But I must stop at this juncture. I know you see my shell, not the core. But am I also deciding for you that you can't stay if you haven't reached the core? Am I taking your agency away by doing so? Am I asking you to delve in and remove the shades I have put up to hide my wounds? Would those shades deter you? I'm guilty of expecting you to. I don't know if I'll allow you to stay enough to see my scars. I'm bracing for how you would recoil. And ironically, I'm stopping you from seeing me, for I'm so prepared for you to run that I shun myself away from you.

Again, in the depths of my heart, I know that love is a choice. Anyone can grow to love, even after witnessing all the paint on a soul. But you could be deterred by your own limitations, unable to hold the vast expanses of my being. And yet, I'm guilty of not addressing this affection as love. I'm afraid I have to drag you through the dark corridors before I would allow myself to call that love. And that's only if you choose to stay. I must prove to myself you're not here for the glitter before I can let you stay.

I fear I'm limited in my thought that love is a verb, yet I cannot bring myself to challenge that.

I revere the word so strongly that I must keep pulling it apart to see if it sticks together, before I dare to name it so.

But I'll wait patiently for the day when this shall change — when you show me I needn't brace myself anymore.