i googled "is it too soon to say i love you"
(at 11:52 pm on december 18th,
64 days after i met you)
countless combinations of 26 letters behind the glaring screen
all spelled the same warnings
it's too soon
it's just lust
it's infatuation*

but i knew i loved you the day we sat in your car for 4 hours and i listened to you talk about your 1st  and only girlfriend and the countless days you wanted to **** yourself and where the scars on your back came from and how you were figuring out that nothing really matters

but even though you want to, i know you don't actually believe that
because tonight, when i collapsed completely under the weight of knowing i wasn't good enough, you were there
you let my tears stain your flannel and you repeated the same words that wouldn't mean **** if they weren't coming from you

"Amelia, everything is going to be okay."*

b e t w e e n
the 1 am drives
the office marathons
the weightless highs
the salted wounds
you became the answer to every question i'd ever asked

you left behind pieces of yourself in every corner of my subconsciousness and i couldn't escape even if i wanted to.

connect the bruises on my hips
from your suffocating grips
you can see our love story, concise but enthralling

this is the first time i've felt breathless but alive

so **** menshealth.com and cosmopolitan for telling lost, hopeful idiots like me to sit around and wait as if tomorrow is promised and keep an unmanageable, starving beast locked in my ribcage.
by the time you read this my soul will be as open as a business on black friday and the simple fact that i trust you enough to not trample my fragile self is enough of a sign that yes,
I love you.