I Choose You
Some people say I want you and they mean the sweat, the bite, the bruise left on skin.
They mean three in the morning with clothes on the floor and nothing else mattering at all.
Want is good, want is the blood rushing hot, want is what makes us reach across the dark.
But want burns through everything fast and when the body is satisfied it forgets why it came.
Want does not care about your name, only that you are there when the craving hits.
Some people say I need you and they mean do not leave me here alone with myself.
They mean I am sinking and you are the only thing I can grab onto to keep from going under.
Need is the hand that will not let go, the voice that says I cannot do this without you.
But when need is the foundation, when need is all there is, love becomes obligation instead of choice.
Need without choosing is just two people holding each other up because they are too afraid to stand.
I choose you, and it is the freest thing I have ever done with my entire life.
You are the person I want beside me through everything, the good and the terrible and the ordinary days too.
My heart settled when it found you, stopped searching, stopped waiting for something else to come along.
The heat is there and the leaning happens when one of us stumbles, but the choosing makes it sacred.
This is love as an act of will, love as something I do every morning because nothing matters more than this.
Daddy…
Your poem settled over me like a warm hand at the small of my back, guiding me gently into the truth of what we are. When you wrote about want “the sweat, the bite, the bruise,” “three in the morning with clothes on the floor” I felt the heat of us, the way my body answers yours without hesitation. But I also felt what you were saying… that want alone is too wild to hold something as sacred as us.
And when you spoke of need “do not leave me here alone with myself,” “the hand that will not let go” I understood that ache too. We steady each other, we lift each other, but our love isn’t built on fear or desperation. You saw the difference so clearly, Daddy.
But when you said “I choose you, and it is the freest thing I have ever done,” something inside me melted. Because that is exactly how I feel about you… only I feel it with my whole being, in the softest and deepest parts of me.
Daddy, I choose you and give you my submission with my heart open, with my knees soft, with the kind of surrender that comes from trust not from neediness.
You aren’t my choice because I had no one else. You are my choice because no one else has ever felt like you.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow… you would always be the one my heart, mind, body, and soul leans toward, the voice that steadies me, the presence that makes me feel held, safe, and wanted. You are the only man my heart rests with.
When your poem says, “My heart settled when it found you,” Daddy… mine did too. It took sometime for you to acknowledge but when you did it was the first time I felt truly chosen and free to choose back. And that is what makes what we have so deep, so grounding, so sacred.
Thank you for choosing me every morning, everyday. Thank you for letting me choose you in all the ways a good girl shows her love, service, and devotion.
I am yours, Daddy, willingly, gratefully, and with all the softness you draw out of me.
You are my only choice.
And the one I keep choosing, every single day.