Is there a world where you and I exist together?
It feels like there must be.
Somewhere in the dimensions of reality similar to this one.
In some, I stay in movies.
In some I never leave home.
In one, I’m married to Jason and we raise 7 kids in a Baptist church.
In another I’m an equine vet.
Another, a professional golfer.
And in another -  I am with you in two lawn chairs by a lake, cooking dinner over an open flame as we watch the sun go down & I kiss you good night.

Just not in this one.

So I must admit, you are not the first man I have written poems about. I know, I’m sorry to burst the bubble but I am in fact a hopeless romantic and have been writing poems in a journal online since I was in high school. The lack of emotion is actually just emotional suppression.

But the funny thing is, with all of the other men, I wrote about them like I started in your entry. Poetic. For me. Somewhat wistful. A romanization or dramatization of events. Full emo.

But what I have never done, is write in this style about a man. Like a journal entry I am assuming you are going to read one day.

I’ve always thought about giving the poems I wrote about my partner to him on our wedding as a gift.

But with others, I never wrote it in a journal entry or note style like they would actually someday read it.

Maybe that was my subconscious or intuition knowing they never would.

I just remembered one of our first conversations about relationships.

We were on the treeline ski lift and had just passed the chalet bar. I had just finished telling you about how I had broken up with everyone in relationships. Somewhat in a braggy way - like the “I don’t get dumped I dump thing.” (Gross and cringe looking back.)

You responded with “Well that’s not a good thing.”

And I started justifying it and how I struggle with relationships telling you, I just always feel like I’m losing something in a relationship- reducing myself or just possibilities of the future. Like I’m losing freedom. Losing potential.

You responded again “Well that’s also not a good thing.”

Which of course I agreed was bad but had no hope on fixing.

You continued, “A good relationship should feel expansive, not contracting, that just means you have the wrong person.”

Which, I also knew people in healthy relationships feel like it is additive, not subtractive but I didn’t know if that could ever be me. If I’d ever feel like if I wasn’t settling or compromising in one way or another.

I think that’s one of the first ways I realized I was in love with you. I imagined our life together, growing together, and I didn’t feel like I would have to fit myself in a box. It felt like you could take all of the possibilities of me. It felt like the world would get bigger.

My first takeaway from my trip was that I love Greg and I should tell him.

But is that the right thing to do?

I keep having this vision of him making ***** jokes in the kitchen while cooking and I blurt it out and he gets wide eyed & overwhelmed with the weight of me finally vocalizing what I think we’ve both known for a while.

Am I too much for him? Would I be a burden? Would I keep him from blossoming into the most free and interesting version of himself?

Am I not enough? Do I not want and care about enough of the things he does? Does it matter that I don’t have a strong conviction to compost and fight for the environment like him?

Is me saying, the thing we know and I am pretty sure both feel going to just mess up the whole beautiful dance we’ve been doing the past 2+ years?

Should I take my own advice in my old Greg poem of just seeing where it goes, letting it leave easy if it does instead of fighting for us?

Or is he consciously or subconsciously waiting for me to express my feelings because if he did it, if he were to match me, He would have a lot more on the line than me. Relocating to a new city, changing his plans, making new friends. And I am already here. Grounded with the inability to move for a few years.

Will he be willing to take the leap?
Is it possible that us together could be just as wonderful as I imagine?
Growing together and encouraging each others individual growth.

Relationships and commitments have always made me feel like I’m giving up something.
That I would go from all of these possibilities of me to this limited, reduced version with a more fixed future and outcome.
But with him, I feel like I am expanding.

I just watched this movie past lives.

It’s about how childhood sweethearts reconnect in their 20s virtually and then again in person in their 30s when she is married.

It’s the what if movie - what would have happened if she hadn’t left Korea, if things would have been different, would they have ended up together. But they didn’t and she’s married now to someone else and lives in the East Village.

It’s not a movie of lust or affair. She doesn’t do anything wrong. They don’t cross the line.

At the end, he’s getting in the taxi for what they know will be the last time they see each other. And he asks what they will be to each other in their next lives. She says, I don’t know, he agrees and then says “See you there.”

It’s gut wrenching and heart breaking and I feel like that could be me with you if we don’t do this. I don’t want you to be a what if.

17 months without seeing you -

1 phone call and every feeling I ever suppressed exploded into my body.

I thought the dam I had built was a precautionary one. A nice safety mechanism in case it ever monsoons.

I had no idea water had been building on the other side patiently waiting for one small crack to burst completely.

They say time moves differently for everyone.
I know mine slows down when I am counting down the days to see you.
I think I’ve found the easiest way to extend my life.
Have a date with you, always 30 days away.