i can’t believe i’ve let my clothes fall in front of you and you still loved my body like it wasn’t different. like it wasn’t bruised and stretched, or tattered, you advise me to not change it because you love how it is, but if i would like to that you would support it. that you would love me in all my brownness, in all my queerness, in all illusions and translucent burn marks. that you would love me in my intellect, even if you felt smaller than me, but i know i will teach you how to fight and how to cry and be okay with it. that you will love me within my newly washed sheets, or my dirty room, inside of my absurd tan lines and my respect for weird people, my disrespect for bad people and the topics i bring to the table. that you will love me inside of my metaphors and my bad jokes, within my small handwriting, the heavy calves that i carry with me every day. i know you will love the beating of my heart, my fingertips, the division of my two colors on the side of my hand, my (sometimes) bitten fingernails. i will love you on top of your creaking wooden floor, the drool that one day, your persistence and fervor, the way you imagine and dream about us. it’s never a sad moment when i think of you, sometimes it is because i get carried away with the scenarios. i will love us, you will love us, we have learned to love each other, as we took time to figure out each other’s last names like we are stitching them to our firsts the next day. this love is innumerable, uncounted, un-pure and gritty, it’s unusual in all its glory, its flutters like southern curtains tainted by racist remarks— wanting to escape the injustice. you understand me, the way i work, the way i listen (which isn’t often, but i’m working on it), the way i always want to touch you because any contact with you is delightful, i wouldn’t mind you punching me if it meant that you got to touch me. nevertheless, you are the one lipped wonder i have soon to spend years with, hopefully the rest of my growing up i can experience this love in its fruitfulness and passion. hopefully we tangle each other into velvet sheets and call it a day, our faces glued to the inside of our eyelid, we dream of each other while next to one another. its a cradling feeling, feeling your chest and stomach rise with mine, to feel a bond within our skin, our scent tethering itself to each other. thank you for bothering me that one day, it was the most pleasant awkwardness i have encountered in a while, even if it was new, i still sought its growth (something that hasn’t changed to this day).

thank you my love,

your own love