My brother asks me when it happened. When I knew.

It was the first night without you, after the first night with you.

It was when you fell asleep texting me, and I couldn’t help but write you a 6 paragraph monologue of all the the things I adored about you. Of all the things I couldn’t handle you not hearing.

Everyone has a predisposition for an art; everyone’s heart becomes geared towards a medium they scribe their remaining emotions in.

The second I wrote for you; the second I had a need to write for you–was the second I knew the decision to stay, the want to be yours, was irrevocable.

Everyone thinks I love too easily. But I think everyone else loves too difficultly. Everyone believes that the scarcity; that the rarity is what makes love special. I think they’re wrong.

I think it’s the uniqueness. It’s the combination of all the variables we are both made up of, making an equation that nobody else could ever have. That the combination of you, mixed with mine–that was the rarity. Not the feeling, or the outcome, or the generic words.

So here I am, with another love letter to add to your collection:

I hope you never forget the emotions you were capable of cultivating.

I hope you never forget the laughter, independent of the tears.

That it was the way I could ask you for the definition of any word. That I could show you, in a series of simple reactions, the definition of me.

I hope if you ever feel alone like you did that night; my number will always be in your phone.

That I’ll always know my way home.

I hope you never forget the me that you created: the catalyst for change you became.

That I will remember to pronounce ‘integral’ as “in-te-gral” and not “in-teg-ral”.

That it was never the ‘beautiful’ you called me with your lips; just the ‘beautiful’ you beckoned with your fingers. The one between your teeth; caught on my skin through your tongue, that I singularly believed in.

That it was your bedroom where you created a new religion; and your hands that taught me how to worship.

That it was the sound of your voice through the phone. The sound of your voice through my hair. The sound of your voice when I cried; when I laughed. When I showed you the sound I made when I couldn’t make a sound.

You are not an eidetic memory. Eventually I’ll forget. Eventually these will disappear like the rest; eventually they will fade with the tears. Become an echo against the pain like the smell of me inbetween your sheets.

That it was the scent of you; the Old Spice, the fresh laundry, the sweat.

That it was the hours after work you couldn’t help yourself to at my place; and the days you took off work when I couldn’t help myself to yours.

It was the broken php script that started it; the one you debugged when you decided to end it.

That it was the pork taco you ate a bite of before you told me you couldn’t eat pork.

That it was only one date we had, before they turned into daylong trips into the adventure of us.

So you asked me, over and over, what could possibly have made you more special than the rest. What could have possibly made you worth the pain. What could have possibly have made me so extremely lucky to have met you, even if I would’ve known the way you would leave me. What could have possibly made me want you, regardless of the you I knew.

It’s the fact that I know you’ll eventually find your way to this, because you’re a masochist, reading my social media accounts hoping that you didn’t hurt me too much.

It was the fact that I could never hate you. That I woke up hoping you’d change your mind, even knowing that you won’t.

It was the fact that I know you had to do this for you.

It was the fact that the loss in the possibility of us is what hurt me, not the you that needed to leave.

It was the fact that I did this knowing it wouldn’t work, to create a story I could never believe

hoping to be someone

you could

never

forget.

– for b.d.