On The Way You Look At Me

please don't look at me.

I know what you'll find.

I've spent years finding it first.

the body,

the awkwardness,

the little humiliations.

And so:

I became useful.

funny.

easy.

I learned how to be wanted

without being known.

I learned how to be needed

and called it love.

Then there was you.

And you looked

a little too long.

And when I looked away,

you let me.

And when I looked back,

you were still there.

You simply arrived

with your eyes open.

when I laughed,

when I rambled,

when I forgot to be careful,

when I was tired,

when I was ugly with sadness,

when I was simply there.

And slowly,

horribly,

wonderfully,

I began to suspect

you weren't looking

for the person I had learned to perform.

You were looking at me.

I don't want you

to become my proof.

I don't want your eyes

to be the mirror

I live inside.

I want something harder.

I want to become

someone I know well enough

that when you say,

“I love you,”

some part of me

doesn't whisper,

*why?*

but,

*I love me too.*

-M