i remember the first time you had told me you loved me.
you had called me one warm night, when it was barely summer,
but barely fall
and i was hopelessly nervous
to speak with you with my roommates in the house.
they hadn't met you yet, but they might as well have known about
that kind smile and the impeccable way you had of
forcing me to feel things that turned me into absolute mush.

you were slurring your words, and talking about god-awful
things that had happened to you that evening.
i always wondered how you got so caught up in such twisted
situations - situations that felt like, i wanted to protect
you from, somehow, with these god-awful tiny hands.
if i could somehow calm the storm inside of you by cradling
your face in my hands, then i would hold you all the time.

i had missed you so much, i remember thinking, because
the butterflies in my stomach were unceremoniously unsettling,
detached from my thoughts, i wanted nothing more than to
just have my head on your shoulder with your fingers wound in mine,
i wanted nothing more than to promise you that i would never
give up.

i remember realizing that i wouldn't be able to have you as often
as i could have when school began and slowly started to gobble
up time i wish
i never wasted on books, on paper, on facts i won't ever need.
what theory means more than the fact that i needed
you more than anything?
- it petrified me to realize that
you were one good thing that i knew for certain, and every thing
else felt like a game, you were so real in my face, like i've just been
going with the flow this entire time, that this whole charade i've
constructed around me has boiled down to be utter *******.

love, you stuttered and stumbled, and stopped yourself mid-multiple-sentences.
you kept telling me that you appreciated me, and i don't know why,
to this day,
why on earth you decided to love me the most out of all the girls
that you could have, any time.
it never felt like i deserved it - never felt like i was enough for
you to love me this much.

and suddenly, you had just said it. and when you had said it,
you had repeated it, you had told me that
i was worthy, somehow. i don't understand, still, to this day,
why,
you ever
loved me at all.

it felt like a dream baby boy, i had loved you all along.
it felt like you were suddenly all mine, and it felt like things
were falling so neatly into place.
i had loved you all along,
i had loved you all along.