entry 032;
i have loved you since the first day i met you.
you made me feel seen, and that was a feeling i've never experienced before. i was scared, terrified even, but i wanted more. i craved more. i craved being seen in every inch of my being that i became drawn to you in every passing day. you noticed and made me fit right beside you like the last puzzle piece that's been missing for years, and has only been found now. you made me feel secure, heard, loved, so much love that i could hardly make sense of it, as the prospect of love was such a foreign concept to me that i could not wrap my head around it.
you gave me warmth, strength, confidence, and pride. i looked at you as if you were the only thing i needed in the universe, and at the time, it was true.
everyday when i wake up i thought of you and what the day had in store for us. and it was exhilarating but exhausting at the same time because you were so unpredictable and i've never met someone like that before. i've never met someone who kept me on my toes and couldn't tell what their next move was. i've never met someone who looks at the day and seizes it as if it was made just for them, as if they were the only ones who could make do. all the people i've met were predictable in their own small ways, from their movements to their thinking to their emotions to and to their reactions. but you were different and i was so young and i didn't know what different really meant yet but you were there and you showed me all these ways of going about life that i couldn't fathom for even a second. so i had no option at the time to feel nothing but fear because there was so many new things that i kept learning from you and the knowledge was overwhelming but i couldn't tear myself away from you because you treated me like i deserved it. like i deserved to see all the different wonders of the world from a new perspective. like i deserved to be seen and heard and that what i said and did really matters. and soon that fear turned into admiration which turned into love and i never felt love until i met you.
and i know you felt love for me too. i could see it in your eyes, when you looked at me like i was the only person here with you, even in a crowded hallway full of people. with the way our touches were always in the form of us holding each other (we used to hold hands when sitting on the bench. we used to brush our arms against each other when walking together. we let our pinkies wrap around each other for a moment before you let go because i know you didn't want your friends to see. you leaned your head on my shoulder and talked about things that you wouldn't tell anyone else. we hugged more often than not, during the most random of times.) when you were the only person that let me near you when you were angry to calm you down. when you cried so openly in front of me but never in front of anyone else. when you started saying it, out loud, but in a whisper where only i could hear it, like it was one of the world's greatest secrets and it had to be kept cautiously.
and i loved you too, because i remember replying with no hesitation in my voice. i remember rubbing my thumb over your knuckles to get you to calm down. i remember the hugs i gave you to help you feel safe and warm. i remember everything.
and i remember when you left.
it was as clear as day.
you were hugging me like it was the end of the world. and maybe it was for you, at the time. you hugged me so tight and i never felt desperation and hope and unhappiness before until i met you. you were holding on so tight like you didn't want to let go and your shoulders were shaking as you tried to keep in your sobs, but i could still feel the hot tears on my shoulder, they were burning through me and got to my heart and i wanted desperately to cry too but i was always a rock for you so i couldn't. i kept holding on and i never let go until you let go first. i wanted tears to fall out of my eyes so that you would know i felt the same way, that you would know that i would never be the same without you by my side. and it sounds naive and foolish but fuck it's true because ever since you left my side i've never been the same as i was before and at this point i don't think i ever will be. and i remembered that i wanted to cry so badly so that you could see the pain i was going through, but i couldn't because all i felt was the numbness in my heart and the hot tears that you left behind and to this day it feels like i did something wrong.
but you didn't say anything about it and before i knew it, you drifted away.
and then you appeared again, but you were no longer unpredictable. you were plain, bland, boring, so predictable that it hurts. and i couldn't help but wonder, 'what happened to you? what happened to my puzzle piece?' but i pushed those thoughts out of my mind because you were here again and i didn't see you for so long and it was at that time that i didn't realize that i mistook nostalgia for love. i created an idea of you in my head that i ran along with because i wanted to ignore the actual you, the you that had become someone that i thought you would never become. and then it got too much and i started projecting the idea of you onto the real you, thinking it was a facade that you put on and you were still the same person as you were before. but i knew in my heart that that wasn't true.
i knew in my head that it wasn't true but i wanted to ignore the voice so bad. the voice that said 'stop pretending. he's just like the others now.' and i tried. i tried so damn hard but after seeing you for days on end and acting like that i had no choice but to accept the truth behind those words. and surprisingly, it didn't hurt as much as i thought it would. and i knew everything was going to be okay, even if you had no intentions of coming to my life again.
because i learned love from more people, and they taught me about love in different ways and taught me that there are more than one ways to love. through touch, through words, through small gestures, through looks, through many things and if it weren't for them i would never heal.
and i know that i could truly never let go of you. and i could never stop loving you because you are so ingrained into me but you're probably not even aware of it. but it's okay, because i learned that i could love other people while still loving you at the same time.
and things were okay again.
i love you.
