i told you i felt like gatsby,
haunted by what was,
dreaming in green light.
but you just smiled,
said i was daisy.
and god, i hated how right you were.

because i do run when things get too real.
i do love in half-formed sentences.
and sometimes i dress the hurt in pretty colors
and call it grace.

but you,
you never asked me to stay frozen in time.
you said we don’t need to rewrite the past
to build something better.
you saw the wreckage,
and still,
you chose me.

maybe i don’t have to be daisy.
maybe you don’t have to be gatsby.
maybe we don’t need tragedy
to make this feel like love.

julie is soft strength,
a quiet kind of knowing,
she says “i love you” like breathing,
and means it every time.

manda is a wildfire,
messy and loud and full of heart,
she will fight the world for you,
and never ask for thanks.

livie is my reflection,
stormy one second, laughing the next,
she understands me in a way
that doesn’t need explanation.

they hold pieces of me
i forgot i gave away,
tiny, stubborn fragments
i’d never find alone.

they are not the same.
they are not always gentle.
but they are mine.

and they are everything.

know,
everything i write is for you.
it’s always been for you.
even when i made you pinky promise
not to look at my profile,
because i was scared you’d know
just how much
i’ve been in love with you.

you entered my life january 7th, 2024,
but i had known you before.
eighth grade me, seventh grade you,
playing in the jazz band.
you were so ******* quiet,
but somehow i knew
i wanted to know you.

we met again my sophomore year,
your freshman year.
things were different.
at marching band,
i prayed they’d pair us as partners.
i didn’t know why.
i didn’t know you.
but i knew i wanted to.

so when you added me on snap
january 7th,
i added you back.
you sent a picture of a piano.
i asked,
“do you play?”

i didn’t know
those words would change my life.

from then on,
i was yours,
whether you knew it or not.

we’ve had bumps in the road.
i’ve broken your heart.
but with every message,
every word,
you change my life.
you make it better.
you guide me through the darkness.

thank you.

my chest caves in,
pressing bone into breath,
squeezing my lungs like fists.
my heart is bleeding,
but i’d rather feel it in my leg,
where pain makes sense,
where i can see it.
seventeen days,
and still, i’m here.
but god,
how much longer can i be?

your name is more than a name to me.
it’s a pulse,
a reflex,
a sound that lives in my chest
more than my mouth.
i hear it and feel,
not just you,
but everything we ever were:
the late night texts,
the saxophones,
the way you once said my name like it was music.
your name is the word i think of
when people ask what love feels like.
it’s the ache behind songs,
the catch in my breath
when someone else says sean.
sean.
s e a n.
they don’t know what it means to me.