It snowed for the first time this winter yesterday, and I long to be at your side, wrapped in that purple blanket, head resting in the crook of your raw neck, gazing out through the frosted window as the delicate flakes descend from above, as effortless as the way your lips always seemed to find mine. Instead, we are miles apart, separated by much more than the briskness of today’s weather.
I heard your voice last night, and early into the morning. Three hours and thirty-six minutes of it. And once again, you sounded…you. We were…us. I could not tell you what we talked about. I was so caught up in the heat of the moment: your familiar voice pouring through the telephone and that occasional laugh that holds the capability to bring a smile to my face no matter the conditions.
I kept referring to us in the past tense, and you continuously asked me to stop. Neither of us want to let go. We cannot seem to release the grip on the thought of forever. “We were….” Or “we are….?” What are we? Broken, damaged, wounded…yes. But hopeful? Optimistic? The warmth radiating from you all those miles away sure as hell gave me hope for three hours and thirty-six minutes.
You know, maybe that is the problem. I am constantly asking questions that have no tangible answer. Maybe this love is a question best answered by nothing at all. Maybe this mess is an inquisition of the universe, a test best completed by effortless commitment, like the way those delicate flakes descend from above, finding their secure home on the cement of roads we once traveled below the stars, hand intertwined with hand. Maybe this is all so much simpler than you and I perceive. You and I. Me and You. Us. Four years committed, fourteen months deep in some obscure four-letter word, three weeks separated, and three hours and thirty-six minutes US. The snow is still falling, and I still long to be at your side.

It's the first snow of the winter, and I long for you to be at my side, engulfed in my eyes and me enclosed in your embrace. I heard your voice today. Six minutes of it. You sounded...you. The you I fell in love with all those months ago. When the leaves were still on the trees and the sun still dancing in a infinite blue that we once were. It was the you that made me the me I am all these months later: a full heart, an optimistic view on this unpredictable ride. It was me and you sharing a laugh, catching up, silencing all that despair and regret and unspoken but ever-existing love. It was us for six minutes. Six minutes long enough for the blood in my veins to begin to thaw, and long enough for warmth to return to my cheeks and hands. Its the first snow of the winter and I long for you to be at my side. You are home to me. However, six minutes simply isn't long enough to lead me back.

It has been two weeks and three days since I last saw you. Four hundred and eight hours since you looked at me for the last time and told me you loved me. Emphasis on the past tense. It has been much longer than those twenty four thousand, four hundred and eighty minutes that I have known you are no longer in love with me. The one million, four hundred sixty eight thousand, eight hundred seconds separating us still are not a good enough representation of this distance. I lost you, I understand that. I lost you ten days ago. But when did you lose yourself? When did I lose myself? And where exactly did we go? (However, there is no “we” anymore).
In these timeless yet ever so slowly passing days, I have searched. Searched for the answer as to how you were able to scream at me through the telephone, but not man enough to show your face. The answer as to why you pushed the truest, deepest love straight from your arms, out into the abyss of utter solitude. The answer as to when that four letter word started to become nothing more than wasted breathes. And wasted time. And as I search, I heal. Contradictive, but inevitable. No longer are your hands around my neck inflicting involuntary pain and no longer am I able to kiss the very poison that nearly destroyed me. I am free. Sure, I may be in a state of oblivion but no longer am I the dirt you walk home on after betraying me with her. I was strong enough to stop drinking my own blood from your palms. Those filthy, sinful hands of yours that forgot, just for a second, the way they fit into mind. But one second can feel like a ******* eternity if you want it to, and you did. You let those hands feel her in a way you used to only do to me once your parents’ bedroom door was shut, and the light turned off. And you were never man enough to live up to it. Those sins, that ******* disgrace. “Hurting you is the last thing I wanted to happen.” I’m ******* sorry for believing you never would. You’re so good with words, did you know that? But are you so good that you’ll start to believe your own lies? ENOUGH WITH THE DISHONESTY. I stopped kidding myself a long time ago. You’re not mine anymore and I’m not yours!!! Yet I’m still so infatuated on you. This delusional, not-at-all you. I want to save you, but I saved myself instead. I’m seventeen days sober but eternally hungover. And as you can see, it’s a never-ending cycle. I’m running in circles contemplating all that you have done to me. The hour hand and the minute hand never meeting up. I am dizzy and I am broken and I am alone but I can finally breathe again.

And at this point, I can’t be strong anymore. I’ve tried and tried and tried and have ******* gotten nothing in return. I’m giving and loving and trusting yet still here I am with a heart that has forgotten how to beat. Lungs that no longer seem to remember how to rise and collapse, and eyes that cannot further distort the image of what was. You tell me you love me yet still here I am alone basking in the hollows of that four-letter word. Am I supposed to wait for you forever? Until the day you decide that I’m good enough for you? How am I supposed to do that when you’re the gravity that pulls the blood through my veins and you are the air that fills my lungs (except lately I cannot seem to breathe). These circles we keep chasing each other in are exhausting. No one will ever catch up. And these promises we keep making are as desolate as that four-letter word. And at this point, I cant be strong anymore. I need you. I need you. I ******* NEED YOU. I need your lips pressed against mine as if that kiss alone could right all of our wrongs. I need your crisp, callous hands around my waist and your sinful breath down my neck and I need to hear that you never want to lose me. That you never want to let go of this. Whatever this is. May it be teenage love or hopeless lust or something that was never ******* meant to be. Because ive held on for so long now. I need you to do the same. Hold me. Hold me so tight that you could shatter me (as if you aren’t already). Embrace me. Embrace what we share and realize that our stars create the most beautiful constellation (even though the night sky has been so cloudy lately). I cannot fathom how you are the reason I cant move or eat or think yet you are the only thing that can cure me. Cure me. Cure me from this depression, this desperation, this ******* blank state of mind that ive been in for the past weeks since you said you needed space. Space. The hole separating us yet drowning us at the same time. Why are we fighting the current? It’s you and me and me and you and nobody else in this world matters. We have one another. We need one another. I crave your presence and you long for mine. So what is the hold up? Fall. Fall for me again. It shouldn’t be hard. Because at this point, I can’t be strong anymore. I am so ******* in love with you that I’m suffocating. Where’s the rescue? Where’s the safety? Where’s the respect to end my pain? Who are you? Where are you? At this point, I am going to be strong and save myself.

love is a curious thing.
no dictionary definition or movie moment could accurately capture what i have for you.
somehow in the millions of desperate empty souls, i found you and somehow in the millions of directions life can go, you and i ended up with our hearts entangled.
the strings attached and not letting go any time soon.
no it wasn’t a whirlwind of butterflies puncturing my insides in one splitting moment or late nights spent miles apart, but under the same moon, pouring our silly adolescent thoughts out to one another.
but it was you and me growing up and making mistakes and becoming ourselves and realizing that our stars create the most beautiful constellation.
the imperfect way we fell in love is the epitome of why my mind is infatuated on all that you are.
i don’t know how you’ve done it but you have captured me like a drug i can’t seem to escape.
im hooked on the high that only comes over me when your leg brushes mine.
and so the veins in your arms go on to strangle me until i am not capable of words and your jaw line slits straight through me until i am bleeding out the most raw form of myself.
i don’t care because then those hands of yours caress my face and suddenly you and i are alone in this world and your lips are the only way back home.
young and stupid, i realize i am so out of my mind.
but our mothers always taught us to fight for what we believe in.
and i believe in us.
no hand entangles with mine more effortlessly, as if our fingers linked together are strong enough to promise us a forever, and no soul on this earth can light up my eyes more brightly than you can.
i believe that God has reasoning for why you are the only person that thinks I’m funny and i believe He has sense to how our lips can meet and no words can be said and yet every flaw that is my existence is filled and then extinguished by your embrace.
neither you, nor i has ever experienced this before.
and i cannot fathom how then i can tell this is real.
it might be in the way your eyes lock on mine from across the room or it may be in the way our lungs collapse and rise in sync to the cadence of your heart.
it could possibly be in the way you tell me you love me, as if those are the last words you will ever get out.
and it is probably in the way we have healed one another’s broken hearts.
you shattered mine and i tore apart yours.
but once again God stood behind us and for some reason, we were the glue needed after all.
what is crazy to me is that this love is so far beyond anything i have ever dreamt.
you swept me off my feet and spun me in circles and made me so dizzy that your voice alone is the only thing that reminds me of who i am and what I’ve gotten myself into.
sure we are broken and insane and wounded and over our heads but who wouldn’t want to be?
falling in love is a risk.
falling hurts.
love heals.
time has proven though that it is worth it.
god, you’re so worth it.