i guess maybe it was just exciting for me, the prospect of finding someone i could love that immensely. it’s stupid. but it made me believe in love again. that love was something real and existing, and that i was allowed to have it, after years of trying to earn it from people who were supposed to give it to me unconditionally. like i was a wall and you were a window, and the curtains were drawn and the panes were pushed open, and everything was rushing in and now there’s light in the room and a breeze and it smells like grass and the world is real again. it was a singular rarity. it was miraculous. i think that’s why i never gave up on it, even when i knew i should’ve. why i held onto it as long as i could, until it ripped me in half. because i didn’t think i’d ever get the chance to feel it again.

imagine my utter discomfort when you said you didn’t believe i ever truly loved you. who made you the universal translator of human emotion? who are you to reach into my contorted heart and categorize everything in it? who are you to give love a definition? who are you to say what love is and isn’t? and who is anyone, really? is it that warm, gooey feeling they write about in books, the one that melts the insides of your lungs and veins and cascades down your arms like a rocky mudslide? is it this physical, actual, tangible thing to hang on your wall or place on a trophy shelf? for people to gawk at and for you to shout, “i did it! i felt true love and it was real!” is it an obsession? an all-consuming, drowning obsession that turns you crazy, and makes you pull your hair out and scribble out pages and pages of useless attempts to verbalize the enveloping fabric of your own feelings? does it have rules? does it have thoughts? i don’t know. i don’t think you do either. i think you’re used to your simple easy world, and you’re terrified of the fact that i’ve flipped it upside down and set it on fire. you’re scared of me. but i’m not. i’ve been scared of me forever. because this is how i love, and it is insane.