Know

I want you to tell me when you need me. So that I can be there for you. But you have to let me. Let me find you when you purposely got lost, call you when you'd rather not talk, buy you lunch when you'd rather not eat. You have to let me talk, after I listen. So that you know I haven't been breathing away in despair, knowing that a wall could do better. You have to truly tell me what scares you, what frightens you. So that I can attempt to chase those monsters away. You shouldn't care that I might do it with just a tissue. Sometimes tissues, if snapped really hard, can hurt like a whip.

You can't not thank me. But you have to thank me with your eyes, with your face, with your voice. Not with a message. Not with pretense. You can't assume that I will be there for you because you want me to. I will be there for you because I know I want to.

You have to unfold. Stories are like that, the unfold in pages and chapters and paragraphs and conversations. I have to be able to read you like a book. You can re-tell any para you want, read it differently, bring it to life differently. But you can't make me read you in a day. You've to give me time, so that I remember the book. Long, long after I've put it down.

You also have to be gripping. Gripping stories, are those you want to stay up and read forever. And yet, they unfold. So well, that you read, and read, satisfying a hunger you never even knew existed before. You have to create that hunger, and then satisfy it.

You have to lie. gracefully, and subtly, and yet so badly that I know you're lying and appreciate the fact that you're not afraid to tell me white lies just so my rose glasses seem rosier. But if I believe you well and truly, you have to know when to actually stop lying and tell me the truth. Not because i want you to. Because rosy isn't my favourite colour for too long.

You have to call me. Call me with a pressing, painful thing you just have to talk about, and yet ask me how I am. And talk about me, for as long as I like. Knowing fully that I will not do that to you, I will not let that happen for too long, even if you try.

You have to know when to back off. Back off when I feel like you won't understand, not when I need someone to sympathise. Understand when I need someone to help me draw up my back-up plans instead of telling me the main ones will go fine. And still, bug me and hound me and call me even though you know I'd rather you back off. Because you know that you actually backing off would be the last thing I need.

You have to read this and realise, that I'm not writing about you, and I'm not crazy, and I didn't mean to write this up and put this on the internet, but sometimes I like writing these sour cream things, and I did mean to write this and put this up, not so you can read it and think I'm writing about you, because I'm not.

But you should know that if you want this to be about you, it can.