Real

Background: I wrote this to her in this scraggly journal/planner that I carried everywhere with me to keep my life organized. I kept it to myself because I was fighting it. I gave it to her sometime later, on some inconsequential day, after I wasn’t so afraid of myself.

I was drunk when I did it, because I’m mostly still afraid of myself. But, she kept it.

"You're it, the silver on a little cloud..."

I guess at some point I figured you would just know. I thought that at some point you would realize that I think about you all the time, and that I’m not okay with her having you. You would somehow know that the few moments we spent alone that first day felt like perfection. “The air must be colder than it should be,” I thought. What else would explain my physiological reaction? The feeling of wild comfort: the sensation that ran the length of my spine and raised the little hairs on my arm. It was you.

You were just doing me a favor. A simple, kind, meaningless favor, and I was reading into it. Maybe you were reading into it too?

You were the last person I expected. Still, all I want to do is spend time with you: to talk to you for hours, to just sit and stare at you. I swear I’ve tried to fight this, but it’s the kind of thing that overwhelms me. My friend says she doesn’t believe in affection unless it is something people have to fight against. She says if it’s easy, it’s compatibility, but the shit you fight against is real. I think you might be real to me, because I want so badly for you not to be.

Maybe that came out wrong. I only worry because I want so badly for you to be real, too.