your patient hands waiting, waiting, waiting for me.

i am not easy to manage, and neither are you. we exist here, together, two problems, each other’s solutions, all at once.

i’ll never forget that week you were in the hospital. i think back to who i was then, a pale girl with a fistful of car keys, bursting through the radiology ward, intense and very afraid and full of something she couldn’t describe. for you: anything. i could have sat by your side and looked at you forever, letting myself take you in, mine and yours and yours and mine until there wasn’t distance between us anymore.

and even when all i can hear is your voice on the other end of the phone line, when all i can do is listen as you describe a night sky i can’t see underneath a haze of city lights, it’s both enough and terribly not enough. i can’t stop thinking about how much bigger you have made my heart, like my entire ribcage cracked open just to make room for you.

you are so patient for me and i am trying to be patient for you. i am here, sitting on top of clock towers and singing to the moon. i am here, ticking off the days on the calendar until i can see you again. i am here, i am here. i am still right here.