these are my shoes; those are your shoes

I don't know how I look when I can't see me. I don't know what my face does, how my body moves. It is this thing that I am so intimately entwined with; yet have no idea how I actually appear.
And this is the big joke about life. We can only ever be ourselves and not know what that means to other people. We can only ever see out of our own eyes. We will never know what we look like when no one's watching. We will never know the extent of our own beauty.

I tell him that he's beautiful. He denies it. I say, "an opinion can't be wrong. You are beautiful to me." He put his head on my shoulder, on my chest, in my lap. He touched me. For the first time since we started hanging out, we didn't have sex that night. We held each other through the night. I was drawn to his warmth. I pulled the blanket over my head to keep away the cold. I woke up to his twitching and stroked his back. As long as I was touching him, he was still. When I tried to turn away, he shook again.
I did not tell him this.
I read a story once where the narrator spoke of peeling the layers of skin off someone; like an onion. The person inside came out new and soft and vulnerable. It was a painful process, releasing the person from their cage of flesh. But this is what I want to do to him. I want to peel aside the layers and find out who he is underneath. I want to break the curse. I want to love him.
And I want him to love me in return.

When he calls me "sweetheart," "baby," "babe" or shortens my name, it makes my heart jump and my lungs constrict.
I am not sure what to do with this. Equal parts say, "tell him" and "you'll frighten him." I hate these games. I think he could be very bad for me. I think he could be very good for me. I think I could learn patience.

Sometimes it feels like I'm making myself worry just because I'm so used to it.
I want to let it go.