Thinking

There is a version of you that remains Unchanged in my mind Your youth undisturbed Lines not yet defined

You rode my bike off the side of the road Nights spent wasting away You were once a little boy; now you walk like a man All the limbs and the freckles put together again And the time churns and it churns, Crashing down upon itself

The contrast is sharp when I look at you now And I think about you as a kid Untroubled, and untouched Conceit now shines in your eyes You are a being of controlled fires and gleaming amber You are at once fluid and unchanging

But once you were sugar when it’s sticky and sweet Dirt made its home on your face Pine needles beneath us as we lied under the trees I laughed and called you a mosquito magnet And it was sweet because you were my mosquito magnet

I see the way now that you primp and preen You want to be seen as something more distant Like a cool, deep lake Inaccessible and seldom seen Thoughts no longer shared with me

And late at night I lay awake,

Sinking

There is a moment in between When the glass shifts like a dream You used to be someone I loved It’s that knowing that rips me at the seams

The future feels like this big and scary thing. I’ve never dealt well with uncertainty. I become tense when plans change from one activity to another related activity; it’s so much worse knowing how much of my life will change in the next couple of months. It’s one of the largest transitional periods of my life, and I fear my options are to let myself drown in it, or adapt.

I’m scared that I will be alone when all is said and done. I know there are new people and new things to experience ahead of me, but in the meantime, I dread losing what is familiar to me now. I like the feeling of waking up and going through my routines. I like the friends and community I have built around me. I like being able to walk through a city I know like the back of my hand.

It’s the late-night thoughts that get you. Sometimes I feel like I have all of the answers, and sometimes I don’t feel like I have any. I know there are some truths.

I know that the moments I feel like isolating myself are the last moments I should be isolating myself.

I know that progress is rarely ever linear; rather it comes and goes like waves.

I know that you did care about me in your own way. It would be easy to write it off and to say that you never cared. It would explain so easily why you treated me the way you did. But I know that it’s not true.

I had a dream about him last night. It wasn't anything life-changing, but it was still something hard to wake up and come to terms with. I resented him so much for the way that he left me, and now the resentment is finally fading, but the loss is still there, underlying it all. When I dreamt, he had his arms around me. When I woke up, all I knew was how alone I was.

It's not that I'm really alone. I have my friends and my family and you. But I miss being physically close to someone. The feeling of someone's hands around mine.

I am doing so well. There is so much love around me, and I am finally finding my footing. I look at myself in the mirror, and there isn't any shame; just simple recognition. My world is so bright, and I am really proud of myself for how far I have come. There is so much joy yet to find.

I did the right thing. I knew that I had to do it. Until I can manage the way I’m feeling on a day-to-day basis, this is good for me. In a weird way, maybe it’s fitting. I can offer you a kindness that was not offered to me. I can be honest with you and tell you that I need the space before you have to wonder where I’ve gone.

[tbf they do help with the processing quite a bit]

[and you certainly did give me a lot to process considering that your text did that thing where it created a little note file it was so long; and I know I already wrote you a mini-novel in response, but that one was mostly written in relief and good wishes, and I think two months later, this one is a little more nuanced]

2/4/2024 (a little late, but here’s a response with the things I didn’t know how to say)

[redacted],

“Hi”. It’s one word, and yet it’s so full. It’s cold and it’s formal and I get that you didn’t really know what to say any more than I did. You say that you're sorry for taking so long to respond, just like you’ve apologized for it in the past. The overwhelming relief I felt upon getting a response does not make up for the shame and hurt I felt for three weeks without hearing anything back from you. And that was just this time. You’ve done this so many times. I know that you say you wanted to take a few days to collect your thoughts, but what if you were too late? I thought that I loved you, but in the worst couple of weeks in my life, you couldn’t be bothered to talk to me. And I get that we were long over by then. Your months of silence spoke volumes to that.

I don’t really know that you understood how shitty ghosting someone is. Picture this: you are a girl going off to college, and for the first time in your life, your parents aren’t there. Your brother isn’t there. There’s this whole new world, and you are learning how to navigate it in every way you can figure out. And then, you meet this guy. And he’s thoughtful and kind. He’s softspoken, but when he speaks, there is this world of games and politics and magic that springs into life. He has a gentle smile, and for a time, you are, truly and properly, smitten. And he disappears, but you reach out to contact him anyways. You start talking. He makes you laugh and you learn these pieces of himself, his family, his fears. You tell him that you like talking to him, and he tells you that he likes talking to you too.

You start spending time together again. You feel daring, and bold, and you are braver than you ever thought you would be. You start holding hands. It feels like the world is beginning to come into bloom. And then, when you start to wonder just how good it could get, he starts to pull away. He takes longer to respond to your messages, and you don’t know if it’s something you said—or if perhaps he’s just growing bored. And then, he cuts you off entirely. No words. Just empty space.

And what are you supposed to think? That he’s dead, and that’s why this beautiful and kind boy won’t get back to you? Or maybe it was something you did? Maybe he just realized that he didn’t like you that much after all. You know on some level that it isn’t personal, but how can it not be personal when one day we were holding hands and resting with my head on your chest, and the next it was like I wasn’t deserving of a goodbye? People who care about each other don’t treat each other like this. 

And even now, I think back to this girl, and I cry for her. She wanted so badly to love and be loved, and honestly, she didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve this. We were supposed to be friends. You were supposed to be better than this. 

And you know what? I was right. You should be sorry. It might not have been how you viewed it at the time, and it might not have been your intention. but you did lead me on and then ghost me without explanation. It was, as you said, “profoundly shitty”. You say that your choices were entirely yours and their consequences are yours to account for as well, but you’re not the only one who has to deal with the consequences of your actions. I do have every right to be mad at you, and I’m not going to hide the fact that you broke my fucking heart.

It is a small consolation to hear that you did like me after all. A lot, is what you said. I really thought so too. For a little bit at least. Truthfully, I sometimes put myself down so much, but that’s not your fault. I pick apart and criticize every aspect of myself when I feel like I’m not good enough. Not your fault. And yet. I had never felt as worthless as I did in the aftermath of what had happened with you. Of course you “pretty much knew” that I liked you. I told you that I liked you. I bent over backwards trying to accommodate you and your time, and I wrecked myself trying to justify the distance you were creating. You didn’t have the guts to tell me that you cared at the time, and maybe it was because you always knew it would end like this. I want to dig my nails into my arms until they leave indents, and I feel like throwing up when I think about every night I spent crying over you. 

Because, honestly, I am worth it. Maybe I wasn’t to you, but one of these days I am going to be someone’s fucking dream girl. I am everything that is good about this world. I was so good to you, and everything I did should have been enough. It maybe would have been enough if you were in a more stable place. Being on a downward trajectory doesn’t help, and I don’t really blame you for being hesitant to write off the possibilities of something. I will never truly understand what you were going through. And maybe someday in the future, I will appreciate that you didn’t want to bring me into anything until you knew you could be stable. But right now, I am still hurt, and as much as it helped to first get this response, I don’t think there is anything you could say that would make it better. You shouldn’t have avoided the issue like you did. It was awful of you, and you withdrawing was a cowardly way out. (Again: your words).

I get that you were embarrassed, and that you probably felt ashamed of yourself and the way everything was panning out, but there are some things that you just have to do. Not because you want to or because you feel comfortable doing so—but because doing so is the morally right thing to do. You want to work with ethics? Then start with the ethics of human relationships. The way that we as people relate to each other. Ghosting someone is shitty, and even if you are scared, sometimes you have to send that text anyways. Do it alone. Do it scared. Do it with a knife if you have to. But at the end of the day, you have to do it.

And honestly, this is the part that kills me a little. You say that you had been hoping that things would suddenly get better and you would get back to me then. Maybe if I had kept texting you—maybe if I had made it more clear that I liked you and would’ve been ok waiting it out—it wouldn’t have felt so hard to say something to me. You say that maybe you needed to simplify your life, but maybe if I had simplified things and told you flat out that I wanted to hear from you at a given point, maybe it wouldn’t have had to have felt so complicated. 

You say that you came back to [redacted] when things started to get better, and that you wanted to reach out to me, but you didn’t know what to say, and it feels like a knife to my chest. I was probably almost dating [redacted] by this point, but the idea that you still cared after all that time? After I had figured that you had long moved on? It is awful. I wanted you, and I wanted to be with you. And if I had known that you still liked me, I never would have dated someone else in the first place. I never would have unfollowed you on social media accounts. And if I had never dated [redacted], maybe I would love you. 

But I guess that what-ifs don’t really matter. Because at the end of the day, you decided not to message me. Maybe bringing everything back up would have made things worse, but it was still a decision you made. I mean, what can I say? That I wish you had texted me when that point came? That it hadn’t been too late? That two months after I’d last texted you, I was still grieving, and I would’ve given anything to hear from you? You say that you cut your losses, but you also cut mine. And maybe that was the right decision for you. Maybe you don’t regret it. Maybe you made the right choice for yourself, and there’s nothing you would have done differently if you could go back and do it again. I wouldn’t be able to fault you for it. More than all this anger and hurt and loss, I just wanted you to be doing ok.

You say that you didn’t write this to ask for my forgiveness. Is it bad that I wish that you had? You say that you think me not wanting to talk to you anymore is entirely fair, but what if I still did want to talk to you? Maybe those are empty questions. I wouldn’t do that to you. I know that we’re over, and I do have my limits. Your entire message was a goodbye. It was late, but it was everything I had asked you for when I reached out to you that night. 

The parts of me that still want you in my life are ultimately self-destructive in nature. I’ve said it so many times, but this situation wasn’t good for me. You were just a person, the same as I was, and sometimes these things just don’t work out. Sometimes, as much as it hurts, it’s for the best that it won’t. You say you wish me the best. The tragedy is that I at one time believed that that was you. Maybe progress is knowing that it isn’t.

From one bird to another,

When is the moment that it all changes? I think back to the past and the befores and I don’t know where it ends and where it begins. When is the moment? When when when?

Is it when you start mirroring my patterns of speech? The ways I react to things? Is it when you start talking to me about bugs even though we both know they freak you out a little? You know me and you know how I’ll react to the words you speak. Like you pick them with purpose from a garden knowing they’re something I would like.

And still when? Is it when the laughing and the emphasis turn to hearts? You like and you heart the messages I send you, like tiny declarations of affection. Maybe you mean them as a friend would, but you seem to like them all so indiscriminately. Like it isn’t the words themselves that you like but the fact that I am saying them.

Where does it all hide in between it all? What happens in between the “I know”s and the laughs and the way you meet my eyes so long that it shakes the contents of my stomach? You’ve been in my life for so long now, and still you stay. You laugh at what I say. When do these things change? What is the moment?

You tell me that you’ve always liked deer. And maybe it isn’t because of the deer at all, but I think: I love you.

I'm feeling a little decomposed! Decomposed is a funny word because it has very different connotations than saying "not composed". It's a process involving the decay of organic materials. Rot. Really lovely stuff--in terms of the way nutrients are cycled through our ecosystems.

I suppose this is not relevant to what I am trying to say. But yeah. The funny thing is that I really thought he was different? I thought that him not being you would mean that this wouldn't happen again. And maybe I was right. The process was very different. The outcome will be different. I will be friends with him again some day, and I'm probably never going to see or talk with you again.

Because I was ghosted! You ghosted me! You disappeared and I got to shove everything we had into the pile of rotting organic substances; I got to pick up the mess you left behind! I was bitter and resentful and I hated the fact that I missed you even underneath it all. And then, you apologize (over 6 months later), and it's like WOW. This was really all I wanted from you. Not even a joke. And there's this rush, because suddenly there's nothing to be angry about! I appreciate the apology (and the explanation), and even if we've both moved on from each other's lives, it is genuinely so freeing to think that I don't have to hate you anymore.

But on the other hand. Along comes this other guy! This one simply did not like me. He was not ready to be in a relationship, and I was apparently not his type. And that's not the best thing to hear after you've been dating for 2+ months (and I kinda wish he'd told me that before he slept with me two weeks earlier), but whatever. He communicated it in the end. I'm not thrilled about that process either, but at least he had the guts to end it with me. A small consolation.

Anyways, I suppose that just leaves me. Returning to the rot I've been cultivating. Compost. The hope, that if I break it down enough, I can recycle it-- the very same love and lessons that left me feeling so bitter--into something softer. Maybe I'll never really understand it? How you can claim to care about someone and then leave anyways?

I think it's a little funny how insistent they both were about how I did nothing wrong and how it was entirely on them. Two very different people and situations. But they both chose to leave, and they both felt the need to tell me that it wasn't my fault. And maybe it helped to hear? I don't really know. Because it did feel personal, even knowing that it wasn't really about me. And maybe they were trying to be kind in whatever ways they knew how. But honestly, I don't know if I really get it.

Like hey, maybe you could've communicated how you were feeling before things got to the point where you felt the need to cut me out. Maybe you don't tell someone you're falling for them if you're going to tell them less than 2 weeks later that you can't see a future with them. Like idk. Maybe you could have tried half as hard as I did to make it work. I'm grateful that they decided not to string me along, but it doesn't help with the feeling like I-am-slowly-decomposing-and-it's-just-something-I-have-to-figure-out-for-myself. Weird, icky feeling.

I honestly think part of the weirdness is that I know that I would *never* treat someone else the way either of them treated me. Like I was disposable—or only worthy of attention or affection when they had the emotional capacity to give it to me; like they only ever cared about me on their terms. I don’t know if there’s any excuse that justifies treating someone that way. I don’t stop having feelings just because you’re in a bad mood. And you know what? I tried to justify it sooooooo much, but at the end of the day, maybe I just can’t relate. I don’t get why either of them did what they did. But I also don’t have to get it to know that it wasn’t healthy for me.

I feel so weary. Down to the bones. Bubbles of happiness and pride make their way through the muck, and then I remember that my feet are still stuck in the ground.

It’s not your fault. You’ve been nothing but good for me, and I really like where this going.

But then someone brings up a name again and my head starts feeling so fuzzy. Like static and blurred clouds constricting the space around me. It’s so over, and I thought I was over it, but maybe I’m not. Maybe this misery is mine to carry now, and maybe there’s nothing you could do that would make it any better.

Feelings cycle. They come over me in waves, ebbing and flowing, and sometimes it’s easier to let myself sink than struggle against the rising tides.

But maybe there’s another way. Maybe it’s okay to lie on my back and look up to the sky and the stars, murky water lapping the sides of my swollen and weary body. To not try so hard for once in my life. To float. Maybe it’s not about erasing the pain, but learning how to sit with it.

You’ve fallen asleep. It’s kinda funny (in a small/sad way), but I’ve never felt less like sleeping.

it’s a little weird, no? You didn’t do anything wrong. But I remember the moment it hit me, and I sat up from lying on my floor. I hit the mute button because I didn’t want you to hear how quickly I was breathing. My chest tight and my head spinning. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t speak—I felt like the walls were closing in around me. I tried saying your name, but it was too quiet, and you were already drifting off.

We’ve talked about fears. I told you that I’m afraid of you changing your mind; I’m terrified that you might look at me one day and decide that I’m not someone you want to talk to anymore. You told me that you didn’t think you were going to change your mind, but also that you would tell me if it wasn’t working for you.

You told me that you were afraid of how online it is. That even though you know it’s necessary, you’re hesitant about it. That you were scared that it being so much over phone would make it less real to you in the future.

I didn’t really know what you meant by that. Is it because you see it going somewhere and you wish we’d been able to have a different start? Or is it because you’re looking to the end already? See, maybe I was caught up in all the hope and the happiness, but I hadn’t been thinking about the end.

Now I feel like it’s all I can see.

And I know that it’s panic, and it’s irrational, and you’re *clearly* not worried about this right now. But what if I haven’t been letting myself see the situation for what it is? What if I’ve put too many eggs in the basket, too soon? What if I only ever stepped into this in some last-ditch effort to trade one heartbreak for another?

We were so different, and there was no reason for us to be friends like we were, but I guess sometimes two people find each other and hold on for dear life. When I turned 18, she gave me a short letter telling me that she was going to miss me when I left for college, but that she knew I’d be doing great things so it’d be okay. I don’t know about the great things, but I do miss her sometimes.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being queer. This feeling of otherness. I doubt I’m really alone in this feeling. I can say that I know the processes that drive others—the hormones and neurotransmitters that influence their brain, the microbial communities that are so integral to our digestive systems, the general patterns of cellular differentiation. But in the end, it means almost nothing. There’s a thick invisible line between understanding something and living it.

There is a guy I keep thinking about. My skin always felt like it was crawling around him, and I don’t know if it was his fault or mine, but I didn’t like the attention he paid to me. He was in one of my introductory math classes, and he kept asking me for help with problems. I tried, but maybe I’m just not much of a teacher. He was getting so frustrated, and I remember feeling so helpless. I don’t know if the frustration was directed at me or at himself, but I remember thinking that there was nothing I could’ve said that would’ve made him understand integration by parts. Like a barrier in communication, we just couldn’t understand each other. And I also thought, that maybe if I was a guy, he wouldn’t have been so insistent on my attention in the first place. He wouldn’t have been upset that I was better at the math than he was.

I feel so uncomfortable in this skin sometimes. I see the way that people react to my friends and how they react to me. My friends seem so perfect sometimes. They have their flaws (as everyone does), but it’s never a flaw in the way they present themselves. They’ve always been so comfortable in their gender presentation, and I haven’t. It’s like there was some guidebook that I never got (or never really understood). I feel like I’m on the other side of the line, and don’t know how to live it in the way that they do.

and this entire time, you’re just laughing at it all. Oddly enough, people don’t always make sense. Yeah, a lot of the time they act in a highly predictable manner based on their pre-existing schemas and historic patterns of behavior. But sometimes they just do things that make no sense.

it’s not predictable, and sometimes it’s even delightful in all its randomness. Your friend sends you a meme, and as the antithesis of anything coherent, it shouldn’t be funny, but for some inexplicable reason, you are bent over gasping for air.

it’s realizing that humans aren’t machines. And besides, sometimes, what else is there to do but heart it and laugh your ass off?

Today, I find myself thinking I don’t know who you are anymore And sometimes I would give anything to find out But sometimes I’m not sure I want to know

People grow and people change Populations speciate over time Responding to their own evolutionary pressures Until they’re unrecognizable to each other

Hey. This is going to be uncharacteristically harsh.

I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt. Mostly because I don’t want to be the kind of person who thinks in absolutes, and I also never want to be someone who gives up on someone for circumstances out of their control. I know that life gets messy, and I never wanted to put you in a position where I was actively making things harder for you. 

But also? You kinda treated me like shit. I look back on it all, and I’m just so disgusted with myself. I gave you nothing but grace. I apologized, and I reassured you, and I reached out—over and over again—because I thought it was better to be overbearing than risk losing you in the silence.  And throughout it all, I just kept pushing my own needs and wants to the side. I shoved down so many feelings because I wanted things to be *easier* for you. You took over 24 hours to respond to my text? I told you it was fine, and besides you responded eventually so I had nothing to be upset about. You canceled getting dinner? Only after I texted you the morning of, and only 1-3 hours after that? Also perfectly fine. We could always reschedule. Except we didn’t ever reschedule. You told me that you were going through a depressive episode, but that we should get together sometime later, and that was that. The last time you ever responded to a text from me. And I know so badly that I was never a priority to you. I thought that was okay. But consistently texting back (I would’ve literally been fine if it was a case where you had to take a couple days to a week to do it) should be the minimum for someone you care for. Because honestly? The lack of response was fine. And then it became a pattern. There has to be consistent communication on some level. After all, I made this so easy for you. I’m 20 years old and I don’t know how relationships work. You’re the first person I’ve ever done any of this with. I’m far from perfect, but I reached out. Consistently. I gave you openings for conversations; I invited you out places; I even asked to hold your hand. I brought you cookies and gave you little drawings and paintings that I’d made out of our inside jokes. I told you everything I was supposed to tell you; I did everything I was supposed to do. I told you that I cared about you. That I liked being around you and I liked talking to you. I forgave you for the inconsistencies in response and told you that it wasn’t a big deal. I backed off when you needed space, even when you didn’t take the time to tell me until after multiple missed texts. I made so many excuses for every little way you hurt me. And most importantly? I always responded to you when you reached out.  But you? You treated me well when it was convenient for you. Your inconsistency was like the world’s slowest poison, and your lack of response was a knife stuck and jammed between my ribs. I was crying on the floor of my room every other weekend because you wouldn’t respond, and I hated myself so much for feeling this way. You broke things off with me for the first time (even then you said we could still be friends), and I broke down crying in the middle of my math recitation the next day because the TA asked me if everything was okay and my only thought was that nothing was ever going to be okay ever again. It’s been almost 9 weeks since you last texted me, and here I am, still crying over you! You told me everything I wanted to hear, but you were only ever repeating what I said first. You never wanted to be in a relationship with me. In your defense, I knew this perfectly well (it gets obvious after a certain amount of ghosting). But you also weren’t ever direct about it. I compromised on almost everything because I was so scared you would leave, and then lo and behold, you left anyways. I don’t think you’re a bad person. But I also don’t think you ever cared enough about me to want to make things easier for me, too. 

And if you didn’t want to be in a relationship with me, why did you let it go on for as long as it did? Why did you tell me that you liked me too? That you felt happy too? Why did you tell me that we could try something? Why did we get together every week if you knew it wasn’t going to continue? Why did you ask me if I wanted to get dinner that weekend only to cancel on me the afternoon of the day we were supposed to get it? Why didn’t you have the guts to end it when you knew it wasn’t going to work out?  I gave you so many chances. By the end, every text was an opening. “I get it if you’re not feeling it”. “No worries if it’s not working out for you”. And you were never once like, oh yeah, maybe this isn’t working for me. You just left me with silence. The ghost of all the memories we shared. And still I reached out. Was I supposed to take it as a kindness? I wanted you to be direct with me. Like I was direct with you. I have never shown that kind of vulnerability to anyone before, and you didn’t ever have the guts to do the same.

I know you’re never going to text me again. You’re going to let it die, and I’m never really going to know why. There’s no fucking closure. And maybe it is partially my fault for acting like it wasn’t bothering me. Oddly enough, it does not absolve you of your guilt in this too.

I hope I never see your face again for as long as I live. There were so many ways you could’ve handled this better, and I’m chalking most of them up to a lack of care. Regardless, you should’ve been honest with me. You should’ve either tried to make it work or at least told me that it’s over. BUT IT’S SUCH A FUCKING WASTE TRYING TO TELL YOU ANYTHING. You just didn’t care in the way I wanted you to. Sometimes I think you just never had the capacity.

One day, I hope you do get that fairytale ending. I hope you get to a stable place and the stars align and you meet someone who you’re actually excited about. But I also pity all the people you find before then. You know as well as I do that it’s all going to devolve in the same pattern; because at the very base of everything is the fact that you are always going to be the one who disappears. And until you figure out a way to stop doing that, it’s going to be nothing but a string of ghosts in your wake.  As for me? I am going to move on. Maybe not today. Maybe it’s going to take me some more time. But there’s going to be a day when I don’t feel like crying every time my friends bring up your name. You weren’t good for me, and sometimes it’s as simple as that. I haven’t texted you in almost four weeks, and it’s a sharp kind of relief to know that I don’t intend to ever again. In the meantime, I genuinely don’t know if I’m ever going to fall for someone again like I fell for you. I’m not in a place where it’s productive for me to consider relationships.

If I ever do find someone though, I hope they’re nothing like you. Don’t get me wrong; it would be great if they treat me with kindness, make me laugh, and listen to my bids for attention in the ways you were always so good at. But I also hope they text me back, and that they don’t take days to do it. I hope that they show consistent interest in me. That they don’t put me in a position where I’m constantly doubting where we stand. I don’t need someone actively prodding and agitating the spiders in my head. Mostly, I hope they actually like me in all the ways that I like them. 

I’m maybe not the prettiest person, and I have a tendency to ramble. My speech and writing is riddled with disjointed sentences. But I’m smart and kind and am always finding new reason to be curious about the world we live in. I’m easily amused, and I work hard for the things I care about. I’m an athlete and a musician, and even if I don’t have the best hand-eye coordination, I’m fast and determined, and I’m confident I could beat you if it came to a race. Not that it’s particularly relevant. I just feel like putting that out there. (You have to have a win every now and then).

I make these bids for your attention. Quick texts. Longer texts. Hey I saw this and thought of you. Or hey maybe we can get dinner sometime this week. Or hey there’s an absolute monstrosity of a bug I saw on a walk. I really just want to hear your voice and your thoughts.

You text me back. Eventually. Sometimes it takes a few hours (sometimes twenty), but you get back to me. You treat me with such kindness, and you listen to my ramblings, and you’re so good at making me laugh. When I tell you that I feel happy around you, our bodies intertwined, you tell me that you feel happy too. I want to wrap myself in this feeling.

I know that you’re trying. I know that it’s hard for you right now, and that it might not ever really get better. I know it’s not productive, but sometimes doubt floods my mind; spiders and mites crawling their way through the space in my head, and I have to take a broom and start whacking away. It’s not always easy, but I have to trust when you say that you care.

We’re not technically in a relationship, but I think we’re growing together all the same. I want you to do what’s best for you, and I’ll support you in whatever way I can. I want to make this work. It just means accepting the fact that you’ve got your own monsters and I can’t fight them for you. You treat the world with such kindness, and I hate the way it turns sharp when you point it at yourself. But I can’t fix your problems for you, and I know that. I can only be here living my own life and offering you whatever support and comfort you’re wanting to take.

As for me, I’m solid. When I’m in your arms, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. It’s like the world is coming into bloom. I want to stick around to see how these flowers come up.

(All to say please take whatever time and space you need; I’ll be here whenever you want to come around)