to be honest, i'm a great friend and partner but an uncomfortable girlfriend. i've never been comfortable under the label. imagine having to wear a sweater with a tag that kept scratching your neck but you couldn't take it off. i don't know how to wear labels.

don't really know what that word means. i don't know what a lot of words that make up labels mean. sometimes words are used to store up so many concrete and vague ideas that their entire meaning becomes fuzzy. words have so much power. words have no power. it's just a matter of intent. words themselves are just the packaging. sometimes i wonder if i avoid relationships because i don't want to wear a label. i'm not someone's bitch. i'm not someone's savior. i'm not 16 years old going boyfriend/girlfriend steady. don't call me a girl.

okay, i lied. i'm a wonderful girlfriend. i just prefer to be simply introduced by my name.

i like being a friend. i like being a partner. i like being a connection. i like being inspiration. i like being supportive. i like creating storms. i like being a loved one. i like opening eyes. i like being interesting. i like being honest. i like you and you and you...until i don't like you and you, but give me a bit of space and i'll come back to liking you. i am not an accessory you keep in your pocket. i am not your college sweetheart. i don't wear things that are pink and fuzzy, unless i want to wear things that are pink and fuzzy. i won't hit on your friends. but i probably know what they're like in bed with more mental ease than you care to believe. i can see the future. but i won't tell you if you're in it. you'll wonder if i think you're good enough for me and you'll resent me just for thinking it. i'll threaten to disappear, maybe one day for good. yet i never fail to be waiting for you, like you're the only person who completes my world. when you're down, nobody wraps you in safety like i do. when you're up, no one tells you how great you are, just for being you. i'm both faithful and loyal, though sometimes errant. i will be so unabashedly open, you will swear somewhere, i'm keeping secrets. you don't doubt i would kill to protect loved ones. and you know never to steal my credit. when someday i finally trust you, i will cook for you. when we laugh until we cry, you will be convinced we were 6 year-old best friends in a past life. i'll tell you about my 6 year-old best friend, and you'll quietly be jealous. i'll tell you stories about how i terrorized little boys on the playground, and you'll be horrified over how they probably secretly loved me. i'll tell you that i'm capable of strange and awesome magic, and you'll tell me you believe me. you've witnessed how the universe seems to align for me. my ego is a giant, sometimes standing in as another person to talk to when i'm lonely. but it's an honest person, and in quiet moments when i don't notice, you lift up the curtain to comfort the little girl inside. you love the person you are through my eyes, and friends will tell you you've never looked better or happier. and secretly at night, you ask yourself, is it just a matter of time before i lose her. your mother will have high hopes. your mother will be concerned. you wonder if you ever envisioned the mother of your children as a force of nature. your friends will stop calling. your friends wish they had what you have. but you never want to go anywhere. because you're always going somewhere, in every thought and flight, even in sleep. you will be terrified to disappoint me. i will be terrified to disappoint you. we will find so many adventures around each corner, we won't have time to wallow in disappointment. we are so tired we rest. we are so bored, we move. you have never been so happy. you have never been so tortured. like lightning striking a bed of feathers, you have never known so much inside so little. only that the person sleeping in your arms is the most extraordinary creature you have ever encountered. and you've never felt so alive.