"Did you know that I’m not her? And I partially agreed to the wait because I didn’t believe you..."

“

Did you know that I’m not her? And I partially agreed to the wait because I didn’t believe you existed in the first place. But in the slight rare possibility that you did, you would definitely not want me. Because I’m not ‘her.’ I choke on soft words like ‘want’ and ‘need’. I hate flowers, red boxes of unpredictable strangely textured chocolate, balloons that take months to die and everything Valentines Day. I’m sorry but to me The Notebook and Pretty Woman were just okay. I am the one fairies tell you to stay away from, I was never Cinderella, I was the evil stepmother. I was never the princess, I was the fire breathing dragon. I was Ursula, I was The Wicked Witch of the West, yet you chose to knocking on the door of this castle of my heart, unaware that an invisible fortress had been built due to much more pain and experience than a sting.

My first love on Earth cheated on me, visiting me on holidays bearing beautifully wrapped gifts of empty promises tied with bows the colour of wishful thinking and then leaving me. An egg can’t produce without a seed and winter came, then summer, then spring, then fall and I guess mine took the option to leave because although mummy said I was beautiful, and that it wasn’t my fault, it still felt like incarcerated incidence so beauty, to me, was incomplete.

So I stepped outside to bask in the sun only to find you sleeping night after night in front of the door of my cold heart, who led you inside? I was terrified. I’d never been this close but all you wanted to do was show me that we shared the same old wounds. For some strange reason you felt like heels click three times. I was a relentless unpredictable storm. I guess those other men were made of hay because I huffed and I puffed and the spirit of your big body howls wouldn’t go down. I hated the way my heart became a defiant teenager and listened to you instead of me.

It’s hard to breathe when anyone gets close. Stay close. And just let me inhale your exhale. Even when I punch you with my words, stay close. Even when I cut you with my fears, stay close. Look at my chilling eyes and remember, look at my bleeding knees and remember, I fell for you and it took my thirty three years to let that pain die so that new hope and new life could resurrect.

And when God removed the scales from my eyes, I remember looking at you and finally understanding the meaning of the word behold. I remember the first time looking into your eyes was like staring at the back of the moon only to find that it shines, too. You wear patience like a tailored suit.

All I can do is thank God and your mother for raising a man that I never believed could exist.

”

- Janette McGhee Watson “I Waited For You”