I thought  I'd never run out of things to tell you,
but I don't have words for how little time I have left to tell you
that you are my favorite problem -
what has kept me smiling on so many days when I forget what my face feels like without tears on it,
or how to breathe without my entire body aching,
or what the point of conversation is.

The point of these words is to tell you
I don't know how to put words to what I know will change.
I have watched distance and difference hurt too many people
to think a postcard promise will be enough.
It's not nothing, but it is change, and I'm not ready.
If there's one thing I believe it's that timing will never feel right
but it always is, it has to be. That is what we do -
make meaning, make sense, take care to wear our growth like capes
and our pain underneath our jackets.
I hope we can fight the myth of the strength of stone
even as we build new homes in ourselves.
I hope I still get to see you in your pajamas, making breakfast, brushing your teeth. But I won't.
I don't know how to tell you that
in any other way than this.
Thank you for changing me even if
you'll never really get from me how.
You have.
Simply by helping me be a bit more alive,
a bit more human each day.
Sometimes that means laughing at a cat picture;
sometimes that means crying silently on the couch,
trying not to let you see me but maybe you did anyway -
either way
Both give me a little bit more of me to work with.

I know I said I don't have words but I guess I had a few.
I hope they sound like an "I love you" to you because
that's all I really have to say.