What if we’re tangled in bedsheets, years down the road, and my mouth goes dry? What if there are poems I want to write about you and the words don’t come? What if you’re looking at me and my lips are chapped and the love I want to speak is only silent? What if there’s no longer sentences so easily crafted between us?

What if we can’t say anything at all?

What if we fall short? Fall short of the promises we intended to keep. Fall short of the ways we said we’d keep fighting, no matter the cost. What if we create separate homes within the home we built together?

What if what if we retreat to our hiding places, quit believing, quit trying?

What if we don’t see eye-to-eye? Our differences finally catching up to us, carving a space between. What if the only emotion between us is fire-hot and stubborn instead of the passion and patience we once knew?

What if our kisses grow stale, our stories fall flat? What if everything we used to share becomes another burden, another item to check off our lists?

What if we don’t laugh anymore, don’t sip wine anymore, don’t look at the stars and hold hands? What if the silence between us is no longer comfortable, but heavy? What if we stop chasing? Stop chasing our dreams, stop choosing each other?

What if we forget what it’s like to feel the softness of one another’s lips, the taste of one another’s love on our tongues?

What if we give up?

What if I hand you the entirety of my heart, lay it out on the table—a surrender to you, to our future? What if it all goes wrong? Unfolds? Unravels?

What if I give you all of me, and you don’t want to stay?
Would it be worth it, loving you?