Notes from the Neighborhood – More than Anything

I have an “ask” so-to-speak –
But before I get to my question, I need to be clear about something first.
More than the need for your touch or your company, I have the need for you and for us to come to an understanding which is that yes, there will be times where it seems nothing is going right. There will be moments of dissatisfaction. There will be arguments. There will be fights. There will be problems and obstacles. There will be all of this and all of this will occur in our daily life.
But more than anything or more than any of this and more than the power of all these things put together; please know that my love is and will always be stronger than any of these things.

My love is stronger than anything.

I saw something like this on my social media feed.

The quote reads –
“When I say I love you more, I don’t mean that I love you more than you love me. I mean I love you more than the bad days ahead of us. I love you more than any fight we will ever have. I love you more than the distance between us. I love you more than any obstacle that could come between us. I love you the most.” 

And to you, I say that as I write these notes from the neighborhood. I agree with all of the above.
I love you more than the problems I’ll have at work.
I love you more than the fears I have about my finances and my financial worries for the future.
I love you more and more than anything, I love you enough to be unafraid of the pain and the risk it will take to hold your hand, one day, and to never let this go. I know that I love you more than any obstacle that falls in my way.
I love you more than I love the bouts which have taken place before you, which have nothing to do with you; however, these past episodes are the causes and the reasons why I flinch or wince with pain or struggle with catastrophic assumptions. I love you more than the ideas that lead me to my thinking errors that divide me from myself.
I love you more than the distractions that allow me to deviate away from my best possible potential and keep me from my best self.
I love you more than the letdowns and the rejection letters that come and yes, I love you more than the ruthlessness of the hard times which I have faced before you and to which I will have to face in my future. 

I love you more than my unrelenting worries that perhaps once you see me – and when I say this, I mean once you really see me, I love you more than my worries suggest that you’ll recognize the truth and that my “impostering” nature was only a ploy to act as if I know what I’m doing.
But I don’t know what I’m doing, at least not always.
And hell, nobody really knows what they’re doing . We’re all trying to get through the day and keep a smile on our faces.
At minimum, even if the world seems like it’s drowning, we’re all just trying to keep our neck above the water line.
(So we can breathe.)

Even more than the way you teach me to see more of myself, I love you more each day and that yes, consecutively this grows. Once the the curtain goes up and it’s “our time” so-to-speak to make what I like to call “the jump to lightspeed,” I want you to know that I could not ever love you less than I love you right now.
And yes – I say this consecutively because I have loved you more and more, consecutively, each day which I believe that real love grows infinitely.
I believe this grows on an incremental basis, to which I say incrementally speaking, my love for you is stronger now than it was the day before – and to add this to your favor, this means that I could never love you less than I do now, which is already infinite – so, don’t worry. Your secrets are safe with me –
So are you.
And so is your heart.

More than it is to make love to you and more than it means for me to kiss you or to feel you or to hold you is this; my reason for loving you is, has and always will be fated by the stars.
You are meant for me. I know this.
While I know that currently, your hand is not in mine or that while I know I am in bed alone or in my small apartment alone; still, I know that my love for you is real.
And yours for me is just as real and just as strong too.
I know that you are real and that more than this; even the most beautiful fantasies ring me up at night to ask, “Damn, kid. How do you come up with this stuff?”
I don’t know the answer to this.
I don’t know where my thoughts come from. I don’t know where my love comes from, but like the wind, I don’t know why or which way the wind blows or where it will come from.
I only know that all of this is so. I know this the same as I know that you are equally so
(and beautiful).

I know that while yes, I have my moments. I have my times where doubt grips me and I lose my patience.
I have moments where I am far from my best. I have days when my spirit is the opposite of beautiful.
I have this and a list of imperfections and more; but with all of this, I declare this too – my love for you is more than my flaws and stronger than any personal degradation that anyone in the world could ever have.

I have wasted what seems like a lifetime.
I have lost sleep.
I have lost dreams.

I have lost hours on the clock wasting time or living in a wasted exile because in the depths of my own prison, I lacked the ability to be true to myself, which is the only thing (aside from you) that could set me free.
More than anything else, I have to be true to my thoughts and to my heart.
Hence, there’s this.
I have allowed for my pains to inflict pains on others in my life. With regret, I openly and wholeheartedly admit to the “exact nature” of my wrongs.
Therefore, with regards to my wrongs or sins, I recognize that in my convictions I have done wrong yet now, I am here to right the wrongs and to correct my passage.
My aim to do so is that while I understand that I must pay for what I owe – then please, allow me to pay this now.
Even if it hurts.
Allow me to clear my tab because rather than be stuck with the karmic debt at an unfair rate of a high-interest loan that I can never pay off or catch up with, – let me pay what I owe.
Let me pay now because in the face of karmic debt, I know all about the terms of bankruptcy.
I know all about the depths of emotional quicksand and how bottomless it is to drown in my own suffering. 

I am here to tell you that yes, I love you more and that yes, my imperfections might list and outnumber my benefits . . .
But what I have is all that I  have and in the case of my love or in the series of these journals and my notes from the neighborhood which, if you haven’t noticed by now, is all about you and all about my personal rebuild and the recreation of my heart and of my soul. Aside from that, what I have is this: my heart and my body. I have my love, my truths, my ability to face myself, good or bad, and in addition to my ability to call my weaknesses out by name, I give to you my joy, my life, my blood and my sweat. These are my vows to you – my love.
I give to you my hopes and my dreams and on one knee, I reach out to you asking for your hand; and even poor or destitute or penniless, or if I am to be the man wealthier than anyone else in the world; still, even if I had nothing else but a tiny piece of wire or a little yellow pipe cleaner, I would tie this in the shape of a ring, kneel before you and say this:

I love you more than anything life could throw at me.
I love you more than the sun when it shows itself in the morning.
I love you more than the sunset which, to me, is the greatest moment of the day.
I love you more than my memoires of Point Lookout or the beach behind 100 Lincoln Road.
I love you more than my dreams and aspirations.
I love you more today.
I love you more than yesterday and I love you more than tomorrow.

I love you more than my words on this page or this place, which I have built in my head, that is for us and only a place for two.
I love you more than my past, which was all it took to get me here, which was a trip, I’ll grant you that.
And just to share, I have to tell you that some of my falls have hurt and scarred me.
Some of my downfalls have reshaped me in an unfortunate way.
But hey, I’m changing this back to me and in my original form, I am working on removing the unwanted layers of my truth so that truthfully, I can be that kid again; not afraid to dream and to chase fireflies as if this was the simplest, most greatest thing to do in the world. 

I love you more than a trip I have in mind, which I call, “Chimayo.”
I love you more than the scene in a movie where Harry runs to Sally and says, “I love you,” because in the spectrum of lovers, I say that everyone else is an amateur compared to me and you.
And even still, I love you more than this too. 

Until one day – when I have you
Or, until the moment when you are mine –

I go back to my very first poem:

If I listen, I can hear you in my thoughts.
And if I look, I can see you in my dreams
Or on the movie screens behind the walls of my eyelids.
But I only hope that soon –
I can hold you in my arms forever . . .

By now, you already know what this means to me; and by now, you know that I meant this when I wrote it.
You would also know that I allowed this to be cheapened throughout the years yet the meaning behind all of this is still true –

Baby, please . . .
I can trace your lines even if I were blind or without hands or a voice to speak.
From the moment you allow me to, I can go on with this from now until whenever.

I promise you this and with this promise, please – allow me to ask you . . .

I’m on my knees, with a wire, a ring, or even a little pipe cleaner tied like a ring in my hand –

With all my heart and with all I have, will you marry me?

Because I can’t live another second without you

Please . . .