There’s a chaos that tumbles from her pretty little lips as the late summer sun dips low behind the mountains.

It lights up the evening with the luminosity of fireflies, and the truth of her fears spills from her heart before she has time to take it back—will she ever be worth fighting for?

Sometimes, she isn’t really sure how she got here, this place of magnificence and solitude that, at times, seems to be more a cross to bear than the life she had intended to build. She knows that she’s sturdy but only because she’s flexible within the means; she’s foolish but only for those things that matter the most.

Yet, somehow, the best of her has only seemed to confuse those who she sees the best in.

Just because she’s strong, it doesn’t mean she can do it all. Just because she’s happy, it doesn’t mean she’s not happier with you by her side. And, just because it looks like she’s fine, it doesn’t mean that she’s not breaking inside.

See, in this life, not only has she always been left, but she’s always just remained out of reach to those who see her as too difficult or impossible to even try. Maybe she can’t bring passivity or weak compliance to your life. And while it’s true she would unearth you from the ground and shake down even your most buried fears and insecurities, the thought that always seems to escape others is that maybe that is what she is meant to do.

Perhaps she’s supposed to be all wrong. Or, at the very least, the kind of wrong we cloak too good to be true in, because then it makes it easier to walk away and forget women like her ever existed.

She knows love, not the bland aftertaste of time and commitment or of doing the right thing, but the kind of love that burns to the touch and leaves ashes in its wake. Yet the problem with this kind of love is that there are always challenges, obstacles, and impossibilities. In part, it’s these very factors that make it burn so hot, because it doesn’t seem to really be love unless, of course, there’s something that has to be overcome.

I suppose it’s not that she’s looking for someone to save her. But, rather, just showing that not only is she worth your love, but she’s also worth whatever it would take to share your life with her.

We don’t have to necessarily fight for those things that are meant for us, but sometimes, we do still have to prove ourselves worthy. We have to make the choice to figure out how to traverse the ravine from where we currently are to where we want to be.

And all she ever wanted was to be a love worth trying for.

There is nothing guaranteed in this life, and she can’t promise that things will always come easily or even that they will smell like the violet of lilacs pungently perfuming the air in melancholy perfection. She can’t. But, more than that, she won’t. She knows that sometimes life doesn’t turn out how we had hoped or even pictured because it’s not meant to. We’re not all destined to know the end of our stories while we are still learning to write them for ourselves.

So, there is a lot that she can’t promise, but the one thing that she can is that you, without a doubt, are worth it.

She looks at love with rose-colored glasses at times, and believes deep down that someone who has the power to affect her so deeply is also someone whose treasure lays buried beyond even her own limited comprehension. But she doesn’t need to know the secrets this life has in store for her, because she knows you are her “one.”

There might be days when you both question everything and leave behind nothing. Yet, it’s still you that she trusts to lead the way to the other side because there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for you.

Perhaps it’s idealistic, but she always thought that when she was loved in the way that you cared for her, that it would also mean that there wouldn’t be anything other men wouldn’t do, or try, or figure out in order to be able to claim that space beside her: The space that is close but not too near, within the light, yet still dappled from the exquisite beauty of the darkness she shares with you. That place next to her side where the only sound is her beating heart, rocking you to your core with her truth that she exudes as deliciously as the sighs that escape her mouth while you make love to her.

We can say that we have to learn to fight for ourselves first before anyone else will; but see, that’s just another thing about her—all she’s been doing is fighting for herself and by herself. She knows that sometimes things fall into place, and at other times, we’re challenged just to see how much we actually want those things to begin with.

Maybe it’s all so simple though. Maybe as much as she feels—you don’t.

As much as she may wonder or even question, the one thing that always seems to escape her is: If you really did feel all that is apparent in your gaze when you look at her, then how could you not want to move heaven and Earth to make it certain that it’s only your lips that will forever touch hers, your arms that will hold her through long nights, and your ears that will be the only ones to ever hear the true secrets of who she really is?

So, maybe the truth is that she already knows that not only are you worth fighting for, but that what you share together within the moments stolen from the rest of the world is as well.

The only question now, it seems, is if you think she’s worth fighting for too.

~

Author: Kate Rose
Image: Courtesy of Audrey Reid
Editor: Leah Sugerman
Copy Editor: Nicole Cameron
Social Editor: Khara-Jade Warren