They say when you know he’s the one, he’s the one. But I’ve never known anything. I’ve never known what it means to be certain; to be absolute; to be truly in love. I am weak and insecure so I cannot promise you forever. I can’t give you my 3 months from now. I cannot promise you I will come back to find you in 15 years. I cannot promise I will love you forever. What I can promise you is that I like you enough to try to pretend as if I know what it means when I desire forever with you. I can promise that I’ve watched you long enough to have deemed you sufficiently crazy enough to play with my monsters and dance with your demons in return.

I can promise you that I’m committing every piece of my broken soul to you for as long as we have together. See, all we ever had was the present moment anyways. All we ever had was right now. And right now, I want those legs around me and my lips all over you.

I want our broken pieces to fit together for as long as we keep chasing time. I want us to run too fast, love too much, fuck too hard. I want us to want it all, to lose our sanity, to burn these moments into memories forever. All we ever had was right here, right now. Did we ever stand a chance? Did it even matter? All we have is one chance in one lifetime.

Don’t you know me by now?

Don’t you know me by now?

Sometimes when I look at her I can’t help but have this unspoken conversation in my mind. I can’t help but keep looking at her because I feel like at this very moment I am that old man 60 years in the future looking back at his memories of a love he couldn’t ever let go. At that moment I knew she was the last. And so I keep looking at her. I trace her slender fingers with my hands and gaze into her eyes so that even if she leaves me I’ll remember her every touch, every scent, every quiver of her lips. I don’t know who she will become after she leaves me, but this 28 year old silhouette of hers will be keep burning in my heart forever as I become frozen in time. I’m 60 now and I laugh at myself being an old man and still being in love with a 28 year old while I sip on my glass of whiskey in front of the lake. I tell her she’s special to me like no other in the past. She doesn’t believe me. I am 32 again. I have lived a hundred lifetimes and she came out of nowhere.

I am 47 and it has been 15 years since she left. I turn around to look at the faceless woman next to me in bed only to see there is no connection or excitement from my side. Being alone is better than sleeping next to a lover and feeling alone. I get out of bed and down a glass of cabernet as I think of that 28 year old girl again and all those delusional ideas of love come rushing back into my head. I am reminded of how genuinely romantic I used to be. “Love solves everything” were words I once believed when I was 16. Her mischievous smile comes into my mind again. Reality and love are now contradictions to me. I had put all the passion I had into loving her for all the time we were together and I had left nothing for myself. Everyone in this world is broken and missing pieces. That short lifetime we had together stole things from me and she took them with her when she left.

I am back to being 32 and we are both naked in bed. I feel complete for the first time in my life as I hold her in my arms. We are both broken, but we fit together perfectly. I imagine all the Christmases and birthdays we won’t ever have together. She asks me why I am sad and calls me childish. It’s one of those crazy nights. We are drunk and fucking in that back seat of my car. She tells me how comfortable she always is with me and in the heat of the moment asks me if I want to get married. I told her of course I will marry her and spend the rest of my life making her breakfast. She kisses me deeply and I go inside her. Never in my life had I had a moment so certain and so absolute that it felt just right. I’d like to think that at least in that fraction of time, she was truly honest with herself and with me. At that moment I removed all her worries and insecurities in the world and she just purely wanted to be with me until forever. If this was a dream then I didn’t want to wake up. If this was reality, God better not take it away from me.

She measures our time together in months saying I’ll eventually forget her. I want to tell her I wish I could measure them in years, but any unit of measurement seems cheap to me because every second I’m with her are lifetimes for me. I have lived a hundred lifetimes over and out of nowhere she left. I have lived a hundred lifetimes and it was not enough time with her. I love her and I want forever with her because seconds are not enough and because she is the last. She is the last girl that I will ever truly love.

Don’t you know me by now?

I do. I do, but I tell myself you won’t wait for me because it will make my decision easier and I’m scared you will change and not mean it. I am scared you will make me change my mind. I am scared you will break my heart if I left you. I tell myself I’m scared to gamble. I tell myself my past 10 years with him is worth more than months with you. I tell myself my next 15 years of my future is worth more than this moment here with you . I tell myself I am scared that you’ll give me reason to stay.

I know. Don’t you think I know you by now? I always knew you.

How many guys were you with before me?

How many women were there before me?

You are scared of how many I have loved before you. You say my love is cheap because you are afraid our love is not enough. But for me, you embody all the reasons I have ever loved and reasons I have yet to put a name to. Stop thinking about all the reasons about why we aren’t good for each other when there are so many stronger reasons of why we are great together. Why can’t you realize I am the final version of the man you have been looking for and that you are the one I’ve been waiting for?

How many women have you ever loved and what were their names?

Who. What. When. Where. Why.

Which one am I?

You are all of them and none of them. 

You are WHO I love, the girl in my dreams that became reality. In front of the world I am the strongest person, but you are the one I show all my weaknesses to. When we are together we see all our good points and bad points float to the surface, but we can grow and become so much stronger together. It feels so wrong, but so right whenever I’m with you because we are both flawed, but we compliment each other’s missing pieces. 

You are WHAT I love: the sassiness, the fire, the passion when we are intertwined with each other; and also the fragility you hide under that proud exterior of yours.

You are WHEN I love. You bring back that innocent nostalgia of young love when I get nervous in front of you as I deliver you a caramel macchiato, and the mature love as I we spend the future discovering and accepting each other’s weaknesses.

You are WHERE I love because I will chase you to the ends of the world. I feel like everything happened the way it did just so I can travel these hundreds of miles 10 years ago to LA just to crash into you. We were originally different people separated by time and space with only a fraction of chance to run into each other.

You are WHY I love. Before you, I thought I had given up on love to be the strongest man after my grandmother’s passing. I was a different person and no longer needed love. Now that I found you I can’t live without the bond I’ve developed with you. I can see both the future of how amazing we would be together and loneliness of drinking alone as an old man if you chose to leave me behind.

They say when you know he’s the one, he’s the one, but I’ve never known anything. I’ve never been certain of anything. I am weak and insecure. I am scared to leave everything behind and stay here with you.

We only exist in this moment, but I want to distort it and stretch it until infinity. The simple things of buying window curtains and her favorite bedsheets for our new fuck nest feels all too scary because at that moment I said to myself, “What if we can actually make this last? God. Can I be greedy and selfish one last time? Please let me keep her.” To give her security and the feeling of being safe I created a warm home for her in 7 days that I specially built to the smallest details like filling the refrigerator with her favorite soju, beer, makgeolli, snacks, and buying her a caramel macchiato in the mornings. I want to wake up before she does every morning and cook her breakfast, fill up her car’s gas tank, wake her up with my kiss with a coffee waiting on the table, and make her a Baby Maker ice cream before bed. If she wants to get fat I’ll buy her green tea cake, if she’s on her period I’ll bring her medicine, if she needs me I’ll be there instantly. She rests her head on my lap and smiles while she stares into my eyes after she eats the dinner I made her. We are in bed and she tells me she loves me for the first time as she lays naked under me. “I love you Stephen” are words I want to hear from her for the rest of my life.

Shooting stars that pass by are the loneliest things in the universe until they crash into each other to form worlds. Fate aligned every decision we ever made in our lives and gave us a chance to meet. You thought you wanted to leave – you thought you were ready to leave. If you believe in fate then trust that we met for a reason in this last moment. Take this final scary step that the Universe has given you and believe that you have one last chance to truly find something meaningful with me. Make that decision to be with me now. If you are brave enough to fight with Fate, fight for us to have a chance instead. You are my world. Don’t throw me away. I know you feel it deep inside too when I kiss you passionately. I know you feel it too each time I thrust myself into you.

I am selfish. I want to be free from worrying about your feelings. I want to not have to care about hurting you. I want to do whatever I want. And I want to be able to come home to you and feel your warmth when the world gets too cold because I know you’re always going to be there no matter what I do. I want it all, but I’m scared to admit it. I rather just stop seeing you than face myself.

I know. Don’t I know you by now? The only thing I can do is say “Let me show you something” and make you smile. The only thing I can do if I feel like you’re treating me poorly is treat you even better. I never tell you what to do. I just try to show you by example what love is like.

I don’t deserve you.

Don’t I know you by now? Don’t you know me by now? Love is not about who deserves who or who is too good for who. Love is family. Love is about never abandoning or giving up on someone. You are my best friend. You are my lover. You are my family.

Give me half an hour and I can plan a weekend adventure with you before sunset. Give me 2 hours and I can create a romantic bonfire that burns before midnight. Give me 7 days and I built you a warm home for just the two of us where you can wake up to before sunrise. Do you remember my last words to you when I held onto that zipline in Catalina? With you I will always make that scary jump. For you I will always jump without a parachute. Imagine what I can do if you gave me a year. Imagine what I can do if you gave us 10 years, 15 years, 30 years.

You can love someone else. You can find someone that is not me.

You said you remember all the things I’ve done for you. Now realize what I’ve done is not just that shallow and tangible. Please realize what I’ve done – that I took all the love that exists in me and in this world and gave it to you and it’s gone forever and will only burn in your memories. Those moments can never be recreated because I tattooed them in your heart.

You will never find a connection with someone so intense, so destructive and so unpredictably happy, exciting, and absolutely crazy. You will never meet another guy like me and I will never meet another girl like you. How do I know this? I feel it deep in my bones when I hold your hand. I feel it in my blood as it races through my heart when I am inside you. I feel it in my soul when your lips are locked with mine. I’m sure you feel it too right? Listen to your heart and feel the fire and the passion that swells up from below you, between your legs, and all the way to your chest when you are with me. Realize that you can’t reproduce it with anyone else. Realize it babe -that it’s me.

Stay with me so we won’t be broken forever. Stay with me because you will forever be my world. Don’t you know me by now? I am your rock. I am the place you call home. I am that thing in your life that always stays the same for you. I am always constant and my feelings for you are always consistent. I am the one you have been looking for. You are the one I will be waiting for. Don’t give up on us because I never will. You tell me that you need me when we fuck, but I’m waiting for the day you tell me that I only belong to you and you’re not willing to give me away to anyone else. I’m waiting for the day when you really grasp the weight of the words when I say “I love you.” I’m waiting for you to realize the reasons of why you really need me even if it takes 10 years. I’m waiting for you to carry these heavy words with me so I don’t have to go at it without you. Love might not solve everything, but it gives us strength to carry heavy things together we can’t put on only one shoulder. Each time we go over hardships, each time you gave us a second chance, something better always happens – you are always happier when you stayed with me. Trust me like you always have. Believe in us.

I am 32 now and I travel in time to ask the girl of 38 years old “Why do you have to come back and tell me you regretted leaving me 10 years later? Why didn’t you just stay?” Let’s not waste the next 10 years. I want to spend the next 3650 days making love to you in the mornings and cooking you steak dinners. I want to spend the next 3650 days fucking you passionately at night when we come back from work to each other. I will always be that nervous boy who says “Thank you. You’re welcome” when I see you. I will always be chasing you everyday even when we’re together for the next 3650 days and even when I am 60 years old and holding your wrinkled hand.

This is not just a simple love letter. This is the last lover letter I will ever write and the last love letter you will ever receive from someone. You like guys who show you all their cards. Well this is beyond that -this is me being naked in front of you because sometimes you are too scared to be naked with me. This is me taking your hands and leading the way because you are too scared to take the step. This is me telling you I’ll protect you no matter what. This is me giving you my all to show you who I am, who I will be without you, who we could be with each other. This is me being a time traveler using words to communicate my 32, 42, 47, and 60 year old soul to the you of 28 years old, to you of 38 and 43. This is not a simple love letter. This is me telling you about a love story that will last more than the next 30 years across time and space. This is me putting everything on the line to love you until I die many times over because you are afraid to face your own feelings alone. These are words obsessed with time because I don’t want to only have seconds left with you. This is me being with you.

Don’t we know each other by now? Can we keep learning?

Let me show you what being in love is like because true love is scary alone. Let all our moments of tomorrow be a love letter that never ends. Let’s just get naked together. Put those legs around me and let me run my lips all over your body. Let’s always jump too far, run too fast, fuck too hard, and love so passionately that we burn ourselves into each other forever.

You’re a bad boy.

You’re a bad girl.

Can we know each other by now? How many miles, how many years, and how many lifetimes did it take for us to finally crash into each other? We are both imperfect and incomplete. We both have monsters and demons. We have both watched each other all this time and accepted each other’s craziness.

You are the last. You are the last girl I will ever love.

Don’t be afraid of the unknown because you know me. Hold my hands. Fall in love with me. Fuck me. Kiss me. Jump with me. Crash into me. Let me go inside you over and over, and keep me inside you. Be naked with me even when we are wrinkled and old sitting in front of that lake drinking whiskey together. Put those legs around me and let me run my lips all over you as we stare into each other’s eyes at the end of it all.

They say when you know she’s the one, she’s the one. I’ve spent lifetimes getting lost, losing everything, and have died many times over learning about the world, discovering myself, and improving myself so that I’ll know what it means to be certain -to be absolute. I won’t force to change or control you. I can only keep evolving myself and hope you follow my example. Let’s be imperfect together. 

Do you know why our sex is so amazing? It’s because we make love and fuck so hard at the same time that the lines between the two have become so blurred with sweat that we just combust. In our closest moments we can’t tell who is who, what is what, when is when, and why we get so lost in each other. We are both mad and desirous of everything at the same time. You burn yourself into me as I explode into you. Our connection is violent, raw, powerful, lustful, innocent, honest, pure, deep. I stare into your eyes as you smile at me and flames of this moment burn until infinity.

I want to roll over in bed every morning and wake up to find your lips. I want you to wake up each morning to see me as your next adventure every day. I want you to lay on the sofa lazy with me after a hard day of work as we fall asleep to peach soju and a late night movie. I want us to run away and escape life together as we down a bottle of whiskey and fuck until morning. You ran across the world to find something – to be something else and away we happened. You are no longer the girl you left behind 2 years ago and you are no longer the girl from before you met me. Face the world with me. Love is both selfless and selfish at the same time. I know the demons you have hidden inside -let them play with the monsters I have locked up in me. Open your legs for me and let me inside. Tell me you love me as you fuck me. Listen to your heart. Hear my soul whisper to yours. Let us help each other strive to be someone more than before. With me you never have to hide who you truly are because I am truly in love with you so I desire forever with you. I am the guy in your life who will always take your hand and say, “Come with me. I want to show you something.” You are the last -the last girl I will ever love.

Bad boys marry bad girls.

Stay with me.

Dedicated to Lisha