I Need You

I stole this idea from Michelle because I think it's beautiful, because I think it's just another way of defining oneself, because I think, sometimes, on a freezing Monday afternoon, that's all anyone can ask for.

"...I need you to see me...need you to find the beauty in me..."

...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I hate umbrellas...because I believe we were meant to get wet in the rain...because I have an irrational fear of getting my eyes poked out...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I have a closet full of shoes and would rather be barefoot...because the feeling of the earth beneath my toes is one of life's greatest pleasures...because I tattooed "write your life, live your writing" on my foot in french, just because I could...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I consider children to be the most exquisite thing in the universe...because I never tire of their tiny laughs or kisses or smiles...because everything they do touches me so profoundly I feel like bursting into tears a hundred times a day...I need for you to find beauty in my love of language...not what I read or write or say, but in the sense of comfort the acts of reading and writing and speaking provide me...I do not need you to love language, but I need you to love that I love it...that I need it...that I consider it an essential tool of survival, of happiness...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I like to be alone...not to feel alone, but to be alone...I like to have quiet time for self reflection and I need for you to understand why that's important, why that's beautiful...I need you to understand that my silence is not always a means of hiding...that sometimes it is about gathering things in my memory...that sometimes it is about restoring my memory, my mind, my soul...I need you to understand that when I am sitting quietly beside you, I am collecting you...I am tucking you away somewhere deep inside me...I am savoring our time together...I need you to think I'm beautiful because sometimes I need for you to compliment me...because I never learned to take a compliment well...because I could use the practice, the validation...because sometimes I depend on you to validate me...I need you to find beauty in my search for self acceptance...even if I am far away from such a goal...I need you to think my search is beautiful...that even to embark on such a journey is beautiful...that my longing for such self improvement is beautiful...I need you to think that there is beauty in the way I listen...in the way I take in other people's stories, hardships, joys...I need you to understand that I carry their emotions with me, often longer than they do, often more deeply...I need you to see that my whole existence is about feeling what other people feel...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I laugh loudly and at inappropriate times...that I can fill entire rooms with that sound...that I have often embarrassed myself with such a capability...I need for you to find beauty in my embarrassment...because it happens often...because I cannot find beauty in it myself...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I could spend hours, days, weeks sitting outside and be perfectly happy...because at any given moment the vastness of the sky can leave me feeling both insignificantly tiny and amazingly grand...because the grass and trees smell more heavenly to me than any other scent...because the smell of night tattoos itself onto my greedy skin...because my skin is greedy for such aromas. I need you to find me beautiful because I could get lost for days in a journal...because if I could do nothing else, I would write down every thought...because I am not conscious of my thinking unless I am writing...because it feels like I am wasting my time if I am not recording it...I need you to find beauty in my shelves of books...and I need you to find beauty in the fact that I have not read them all...that I can walk into a bookstore and buy twenty books at a time...that it will take me months to read them all...and that knowing that doesn't stop me from buying more in the meantime...I need you to find beauty in my need to be surrounded by books...in the way I associate them with being home...in the way they remind me of where I came from...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I was born and raised in Philadelphia and have yet to see a single Rocky movie...I need you to think I'm beautiful because all of my favorite love stories do not have happy endings...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I believe in happy endings...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I do not know what I believe in religiously...because my thoughts on God change daily...because your not believing only makes me want to believe it more...I need you to find beauty in my desire to be a good person...I need you to see how hard I am trying....I need you to think I'm beautiful because I am open, honest, loving, loved...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I cannot get enough of this world...because the more I see, the more I want to see...because the tiny details fill me with as much joy as the big pictures...because I notice more than what meets the eye...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I live with an open mind...because I try my best not to judge...because I think our differences are equally as important as our similarities...I need you to find beauty in my strives to help others...in my lending of money or a hand or an ear...in my wanting to help in any way I can...And mostly, I need you to think I'm beautiful because I don't...because that's never a word I would use to describe myself...because I can and do see beauty in everything except who I am...I need you to think I'm beautiful because I am still learning how.