I love you.
When I say it, I want to laugh at myself
Because "how can someone love somebody they have never even met?"
"How can somebody love someone whose hands they have never held, whose scent they have never smelt, whose arms they have never been encompassed in?"
They say Skype doesn't count,
That video chatting doesn't mean you've really met them.
That talking on the phone doesn't mean that the butterflies you get in your stomach are real,
That the person you love is a mirage of pixels
and let's not forget the, "he could be a serial killer"
or "you don't really know who they are"
My personal favorite is "he's probably a forty year old *******."
But I love you.
They say that "love isn't based off appearances," but even so, I know that your eyes are green somedays or blue the next,
you hate the way your hair flips in every direction
and falls into your face because you can't make out the words on the screen behind the curtain of brown-
I know that your left shoulder blade protrudes more than your right,
And that you get breakouts on your cheeks if you sleep too often.
Love is based off "personality."
I know that you're funny,
you love football,
you hate to see a woman cry,
that you're rude all the time, except to your grandmother
that you only joke around so much because you're afraid of being hurt,
you love pizza,
your dog is your pride and joy.
Why can you be in love with someone the same gender
or someone a hundred pounds heavier or lighter
Or someone ten years younger
Or someone with a disability?
Because you love for personality,
because love is blind.
But why is that when I love you for your personality,
I am the one who is blind?
You don't love your partner for the way they feel or how they smell or how much they weigh
You love them for the words they say to you.
You love them for how "I love you" slides off their tongue like molasses,
For how "you're beautiful" isn't just a compliment, but a promise.
You love them for the way they make you feel, not for the way they feel to you.
I love you because you know more about me than people who have known me my whole life,
Because you've made me feel more alive in the last three years than I've ever felt in my entire life,
That you, someone I've never met,
has stopped me from suicide
and kept me from burning or cutting
yet people in the same house as me haven't noticed that depression is even a problem.
When I say I love you, I want to laugh at myself,
Because we still live in a society where love is only real if you can hold it in your hands.