When I disappear into my mind, I know you won’t try to follow me.

I don’t feel your eyes on me when I look away.

You wouldn’t fight for me. There is a carelessness in you that I cannot move, a certain vacancy that I cannot fill.

I am too hungry; you would be devoured, or I would starve.

I am always the one reaching out. If I fell, you wouldn’t catch me.

Am I a bad person for wanting romance and passion in a relationship?  Am I selfish for demanding plot, for insisting that “my narratives are rich, my supporting cast colorful, and my typeface bold?” Am I un-Christian for accepting nothing less than a life worthy of being storied?

I have never been one to settle.  I want to be pursued.  I want passionate love letters and late-night discussions about literature and God and philosophy and social justice and beauty.  I want spontaneous beach trips and photographs of us kissing at sunset.  I want to lie on the floor with you and get lost in music, and then try, and fail at, explaining precisely how it makes us feel.  I want to be needed in the middle of the night because there is sadness in the world and you don’t know how to fix it.  I want to be needed on rainy mid-mornings when you feel lonely in a room full of people.  I want to be needed when you are wrestling with God and you need to talk to someone, even if it is just to relieve pressure.

I just want to feel needed.  I want mystery and intrigue and challenges and intellectual stimulation and shared interests and fulfillment.  Because less than that would be shrinking.