I’d like to be someone who talks quieter. The kind of person you have to lean in to hear what they’re saying, and it’s not exactly that they’re speaking in a muffled voice—it’s just quiet. But if you listen really closely, if you lean in enough, you hear them speak with a specific kind of clarity. You never ask them, “Sorry? What was that?” You heard them the first time.

I’d like to be someone who falls asleep at 5 AM and wakes up an hour later, and no one would ever tell they haven’t slept in days. Someone who smiles politely and says, “Great, how about you?” when someone asks them how their night was. The kind of person who never answers, “Awful, just awful.”

I’d like to be someone who doesn’t tell anybody anything. Someone who could work at the same place for ten years, and then upon leaving has everyone puzzled by the fact that they know absolutely nothing about this quiet spoken person. They weren’t shy—they just know you don’t really care. They know this, and they move on to spill their words to those who have enough room in their hearts for them.

I’d like to be someone who can cry about the saddest songs without wanting to scream out into the fast-pacing world that they are so sad and these songs are so sad and would you look at these words with them? Do you see how sad these words are? How sad this singer sounds? I’d like to listen to these sad songs, and simply hum along.

I’d like to be someone who is anyone but the person I am now. I’d like to be someone who thinks in any way that isn’t my way, someone who eats differently (chews 26 times before they swallow perhaps), someone who lives by the words they love, someone who is anyone but me.

I’d like to be someone you find wonderful and beautiful and you tell me, “You are the most beautiful person in the world.” and you don’t add “to me” because you know I notice those things. And you tell me this, and you are not talking about my hair mop or my protruding stomach (expect you live in a world where you have never seen a fashion magazine, a world where they did not get to you yet and you think these bits and pieces are strokes on a masterpiece). You are talking about my mumbled way of speaking, my obnoxious ideas that never turn into actions, my intense fear of forever, my anger at liars as a self-proclaimed liar—you take what I hate and you are convinced that without them, I am not the girl you love, and you make me feel this by the way you say sorry when I tell you I am sad. You grab my hand, and you ignite something that I haven’t experienced yet, something that I cannot even write down at this moment because you have never existed before but I imagine it’s like being in the middle of a firework show for the first time or shouting over the rush of a waterfall or the peak of that great song you’ve listened to more times than you can count. You grab my hand, and you ignite that, and you convince me to the point that if every single person on every single road in every single city in every great country in this world came up and told me, “No, you are not wonderful.” I wouldn’t believe them because you have flowed into every part of my skin and you have gotten me to love myself the way you love me, and I wouldn’t need anyone else’s permission.

I’d like to be someone who lives in a universe where you exist.

I’d like to be someone.

Someday.

Somehow.