I love you.
there.
I have said it again,
and I will say it tomorrow,
and in all the tomorrows
that follow.
not because the words
might change your heart,
but because some truths
were never meant
to be swallowed.
and you
are one of mine.
I wanted to write the world
with you.
not only the pages
where the light came easily,
but the ones we would have filled
with our trembling hands,
learning how to stay
when the story turned dark.
I wanted the ordinary
to become extraordinary
because you were there.
the quiet mornings.
the unfinished sentences.
your hand finding mine
without either of us
having to ask.
I wanted a lifetime
of little things
that would have meant
everything.
but perhaps
you were never dreaming
the same dream.
and what do I do
with all these unwritten pages,
all this beautiful language
with nowhere left to go?
I cannot make a home
of a heart
that does not wish to keep me.
so, I will not ask you
to become someone else,
or lay my longing
at your feet
and call it a promise.
I will love you
without making a wound
of what you cannot give.
and if our world
must remain unwritten,
let the pages rest
beneath the dust of stars,
holding the shape
of everything
we might have been.
I will not call it a mistake.
some things are beautiful
even when they do not stay.
some loves change nothing
and leave nothing
unchanged.
you are a good man,
my beloved.
and somewhere in me,
beyond the reach
of all that did not happen,
there is a place
where your name
will always be spoken
with tenderness.
I love you.
I will always love you.
I will never stop
saying so.
not because you owe me
a forever,
but because my heart
has never learned
to measure love
by what it gets to keep.
and if I must carry
this unwritten world
alone,
I will.
but my beloved,
of all the stories
time will let me live,
you will always be
the one
I wanted
to write
the world with.
