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Even if someday my throat manages to scrape out my feelings, plastering them to my forehead, regardless of how it goes or if we ever speak again after that or if we get married after that or if we hold each other after that, I wonder if you will ever truly know what I have felt.

From the moment I saw you I had the inkling I would fall into you.

That day I remember so clearly, and that is how I know it was important. I do not remember my high school graduation, I do not recall any childhood birthday party, I can hardly recall my first kiss anymore, and yet the one where I saw you for the first time, counted the things about you I liked, tried to make you smile—this I remember. We talked about many things, our state, movies, television, but I mostly recall the way it felt to look at you. It was like the sun’s rays were meant to illuminate your skin. Your eyes were wells of beauty, I love the way they change when you smile.

We didn’t see each other for a while after that. Isn’t that funny to think about? Those few weeks I started falling in love with you were distanced. Distance has left food on the porch for me, I have crawled back.

I was not who I am today when I had you. My mother says every month before you turn 25 you are a different man, for me it is every day. When I could taste you, kiss you goodbye and goodnight on Halloween, tell you I loved you under flickering lights with spiders as company, watching our bunnies scurry beneath the bushes on a walk home, I did not consider what it would be like to miss it. I think I’ve missed it from the moment we changed things.

This summer, while I was kissing someone else, you crept into the back of my mind, dripping down my back. It gave me shivers. I would wake up with goosebumps in 98 degree rooms. I still regret letting myself think about you with someone else’s tongue in my mouth.

I don’t need you to feel the same way, I mean this. My spirit is sturdy, it can withstand just about anything—as long as father’s aren’t involved. I just think life would taste so much sweeter with me at your hip. Silver and gold. Tea and Coffee. Cats and rabbits. Blackberries and pomegranates. Guitars and violas. You paint my life with a different beauty than I’ve ever known. I would be the richest girl alive if I had you in a special way.

Your name lives in my soul. I cannot hear certain words without your visage conjuring itself before me: love, woman, beauty, flower, gold, fruit, muse, artist, you are them all. It is torturous to be haunted by you, if only because I know it is not real. I know you do not conjure me. I cannot let it hurt me. I am happiest when you are happy; if you are happy without me, I can be too.

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