I Like Your Flaws
I like how you mispronounce words sometimes, how
you fumble and stammer and stutter looking for the right ones to say and the
right ways to say them. I appreciate that you find language challenging,
because it is, because everything man made is challenging. Including man,
including you.
When you sleep on your side, I like to map the
constellations between your beauty marks freckles pimples, the minuscule
mountains that sprinkle your back. I like the tufts of hair you forgot to shave
and the way you smell when you haven’t showered in a while; I like the sleep
left in your eyes.
I like the way your skin dies in the middle of the
night, how you die from embarrassment the next morning; how you writhe in the
snake casing you’ve left behind. I like that you think pillow snowflakes carry
more weight than pillow talk; that you think my opinion of you is so fickle
that it could change overnight. (It’s not.)
I enjoy seeing you insecure, vulnerable. I like to
watch red steam light up your cheeks, a spreading mist of shame when you think
you’ve done something unacceptable like missing a step on the stairs or not
having the perfect answer to something I’ve said. It’s like you honestly don’t
know how wonderful you are, it’s like you have no idea.
The burns, the scars, the black and blues on your
face body heart, I want to know their stories. I want to know what hurt you,
who hurt you, how bad the damage is. I like your hard, ugly toenails and the
layer of fat that lines your belly, the soft parts you try to hide. It’s okay
to be soft, sometimes.
I appreciate your ability to get inappropriately
angry as much as I appreciate your willingness to apologize afterward. I like
how your passion manifests unpredictably and uncontrollably, how your feelings
cannot be caged or concealed, how you’re incapable of apathy.
I like how you can’t dance, how you have
pedestrian taste in music, how the worst song on every album is your favorite.
I like how enthusiastic you are when you hear it, it’s like you don’t know how
terrible it is, it’s like maybe how you’re able to love someone like me.
(Perhaps that’s your biggest flaw, perhaps that’s the one I love most.)
Your flaws single you out, set you apart, make you
different from the rest, and thank god. I don’t just put up with settle for
accept your blemishes, I like them. I like them because they make you human,
and humans are easier to love than photographs and illusions and ideals; humans
fit more easily between arms and between legs; humans are welcome to their
imperfections because if there’s one thing humans can do perfectly, it’s love.
Humans can love, they can do it flawlessly.
