There is nothing more beautiful and more painful than loving someone. To be able to hold them close and feel their heart beat at the same time as yours. To know that they are here. To know that out of everyone they know, they chose you. To know that even if one thing has gone wrong in either of your lives, or anyone else’s life, you might not even have met.

It is so precious.

And it is so tragic.

Letting them so close, to know your secrets, to see how vulnerable you are. To love someone doesn’t mean to kiss their knuckles and murmur how much you desire them. To love someone is to see their pain when they are lashing out at you. To love someone is to look at their demons in the eye and promise to not run away when they come for you too. To love someone is to sit beside them, to talk to them, when they are a black hole collapsing in on itself.

To hold the sun in your hands, you will be filled with warmth, but you will also burn.

It is wonderful, so wonderful, when you have a person to rely on when you need help the most. Someone you know and trust and has become the first person you turn to. Someone that comes to mind when you see a tasty snack, a pretty flower, or an adorable animal.

Oh, you think, oh, they will love this.

How wonderful to want to share a moment in your life with another person, even if they aren’t there right next to you.

How painful it is knowing that they can’t spend every second with you, and you can’t spend every second with them. Sitting alone, counting down the seconds until you can see them again—indefinitely, maybe, when you don’t even know when you can.

How terrifying to fall backward, with your eyes closed, into the arms of someone that can pull away at any second, without warning and without hesitation.

Nothing changes the fact that it takes two people to agree to walk together, and only one person to walk away.

Knowing that they are not perfect, but they are perfect to you. Their flaws, their strengths, their weaknesses, their talents, their skills. You bring the best out of each other. You cover for each other’s shortcomings. You work together to mend each other’s wounds. They are not perfect, and neither are you, but you are wonderful for each other.

What a privilege it is to find someone that likes you back, that you like back, in a time and space where you both are allowed to like each other—either by the world or by yourself.

To exist at the same time and place is a miracle. It is a miracle your paths ever crossed, and you met the way that you did, in the headspace that you did, in the world that you did.

What a tragedy it is that you love each other. When they say they love you, now you have someone to lose. Someone you allowed to hold your heart, allowed to hurt you, allowed to see the glimpses of you that you might not even know you had.

Don’t make a mistake, you think. Make one mistake and when they are gone, you will regret it.

The pain will be immeasurable. The loss of something so tremendous. An answer from god. Someone so beautiful, so wonderful, so perfect for you. Someone who would share their food with you, who would show you pictures of something silly they saw, who would point out every dog as you walk.

And it will be all your fault.

Yet, waking up every day doesn’t sound like a chore anymore. Another day is another opportunity to talk to them, to spend time with them, to make more memories that strengthen the love between the two of you.

Another day is another opportunity to sit in the same room, to exist in the same space, to breathe the same air.

Maybe you can reach out to them and hold their hand, to reassure yourself that they are still there. Maybe you get up to go somewhere and they will trail after you, curious, then you dance in the kitchen in the dark. Maybe you cook and you clean and you do mundane things together.

Maybe you sit alone in your room, long after they have gone to sleep, worrying your nails about the uncertain and unwritten future. The fears and insecurities. Maybe one day they will wake up and find someone else more wonderful, more delightful, and more suitable. Maybe one day you will wake up and realize the little quirks that you once adored irritate you to no end.

Maybe you tell them you love them, and they will say it back. Maybe they will say it first, and you are taken aback. Maybe you feel mushy inside, with butterflies in your stomach and lightning up your arms.

Or there are no words at all. When you look at them in the kitchen, scrubbing a pan, a sensation washes over you and pulls you under. When they are stressed and you reach out and put your hand on the nape of their neck, and all their tension melts away. The same look in both of your eyes in those separate moments. To anticipate your needs, to fulfill an image that you have had for eons, to be a part of your life that is so domestic and intimate and close to the core of your being.

You feel those words in your mouth, repeat them in your head, and they are heavy on your tongue, and you don’t know if your mouth is dry or if your throat has closed up.

Because now, you realize, you have someone to lose. And it is so wonderfully, most consumingly, terrifying.