I Want You to Be Here with Me for Christmas

I want you to be here with me for Christmas,
Even if you leave your heart at home.
I know that lately my love makes you restless,
But it's too hard to spend this time alone.

My love for you is like the Christmas season:
Joyful, yet with knowledge of the end.
My need for you has neither hope nor reason:
If not a lover, please, just be a friend.

Please, just be a friend, and come to me
When all the world is bright with love and song.
You are my pillar and my fantasy,
My earth and yet the sky for which I long.

My need for you, of course, is mine, not yours,
Nor need you answer me but out of love.
This is the season when we open doors
To let in those whose need our hearts might move.

And after Christmas you may go your way
To leave me with my sadness and my dreams.
I have no right to bother you to stay,
Knowing how your heart, unaltered, leans.

I want you to be here with me for Christmas,
Even if you leave your heart at home.
What you decide, and why, is not my business,
But still for me it's hard to be alone.