When You Say "I Love You"

The words "I love you" were not made to solve the ugly 3AM fights. They were not meant to be used as a Band-Aid for the damage done by the mistakes you wish you could take back or the things you didn't mean to say. You said those three little words in a desperate attempt to fix things and to make everything seemingly bad go away—every tear, every scar, and every painful pit in my stomach. You naively believed that when things would go wrong, those words were all that you needed to make things right again. 

When you say "I love you," I want you to mean it. I don't want to just hear it when you think I'm PMS-ing, or when you just think I need to hear it. I want you to say it even in moments where it doesn't seem to matter—in the instances where you catch me spacing out or when you think I'm dozing off on your chest when I'm actually just listening to the clicks and whooshes of your heart and wondering if it's beating for me. 

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