I lay in my bed, still as the night, holding my breathe as I wait for his hand to brush against mine. Instead, a cockroach—one of the largest I have ever witnessed, crawls quickly across his pillow case. With one swoop of my hand, I send it flying across the room and startled him awake.

Those ocean blue eyes glanced towards me, questioning the noise and the movement; curious if it was another bug, and even though I wanted to lie, I let him know it was a cockroach.

Being with him is always like a dream, so much time spent in fear of waking up and it all being gone. I want to believe that love lasts forever, but the cold world around me has brought different ideas to my heart.

My soulmate will never feel the same way about me. Putting words to that is something I have unsuccessfully tried to avoid. Because I know this beautiful soul is not mine, no matter how much I want him. I cling to his body, tracing every crevice, feeling his warmth against my body and I spend the entire night hyper focused on making love to him again. Our bodies becoming one in the night, his bountiful lips finally finding my own.

I want him to touch me and kiss me more than I have ever wanted anything. I want to marry him and have his children, raising them together and showing them what real love looks like. But more often than not, I pray to God that love does not look like this—like the love I saw my parents share and swore I would never pass on.

My nights are spent browsing engagement rings for a man who will always be in love with someone else and it makes my soul ache in ways I wish I never knew. It does not make it any easier that I was aware of it, from the very first time we met and he cried in my arms from how much it hurt him that they couldn’t be together.

When I think about it now, I realize I am a fool who doomed myself from the start. It is hard to feel sorry for me; I chose him and I always have chose him. He is the love of my life, but will I ever accept that maybe I am not his?

Just the thought of it makes my existence feel less certain, like I could fade away completely at any moment. Is it possible to live without loving him??? I doubt it, so I stay.

I stay with someone who makes me feel like a failure, like I will never measure up to immeasurable standards. It crushes me, constantly, to think that I will never feel enough—despite the effort for his opinion to not matter, it does. So much.

I just want him to fucking love me.