u/Glittering-Curve-466

I write you so many letters. Ones you’ll never read. Maybe I’m processing my feelings. I wish I could say most of what I write to you.

Every letter is a fantasy. You already have someone. At best, my letters dance around this. At worst, I blatantly ignore this reality.

Sometimes I forget they are there. I forget we’re not already together.

Then you say their name. It’s like waking from my favorite dream. I feel my face twist before I have time to fix it, and I wonder if you see it? I hope not. I try to keep it private.

A while back I offered something to you, and you accepted it. I still haven’t delivered. I realized that working on that small gift for you was substituting your presence around me. Not only did I stop working on it, but I have barely touched my instrument since.

Because I know that this feeling is wrong. I used to try and disallow it from my heart, but one day I gave in. Now, I struggle to know when I’m in fantasy or reality around you.

I just try to maintain contact while not getting too close. I’m afraid it makes me seem distant, but I’m so scared of pushing you in anyway. I’ve gotten bad about picking on you recently, and I’m stopping it. That was middle school type of behavior and I’m far too old to be doing the “I have a crush on you so I’m mean” thing.

I sit around and pine for you and desire you and to be close to you. I wish longing was something one could do for a job because I would be working all day and all night.

Maybe this is my fantastical side, but this doesn’t feel unrequited. Only that life can’t allow for it.

I wish I could just make a decision one way or another. I don’t want to cause anyone else pain, and so the option of ever admitting that I actually am in love with you is one I can’t make. My other choice is fully letting all this go, but I’ve tried and I don’t know how.

I even quit writing you letters (I knew I wouldn’t send.) I thought maybe it would help, but it didn’t. Anyway, it isn’t like I wrote them during the time I fell in love with you. Only when it was too much to remain only in my body.

I keep trying to put things I relate to you in someway in a box, but I can’t get my love for you to fit in there.

It’s like a breath I’ve held for months and months. The love built up over years and one day it was one of the biggest things in me.

I’m in love with you, actually. We say “I love you” to each other, but I worry there’s an uneven weight to those words.

When I say it I’m thinking about how important you are to everyone who meets you. You have a way about you that makes people feel like the only person in the room. Everyone has something to say about you. It’s your energy. You’re soft, warm, and kind. In equal measure I’ve seen you be headstrong, vocal, and confident.

You exist to so many people.

We’ve known each other for such a long time. Through all of these years you’ve been there for me. Days when I thought my entire world was only full of darkness were made brighter by you. Because you ask what’s wrong and look me in the eyes, but the gaze goes much deeper. I feel it there just hovering over my soul.

How much I love you is the biggest thing I’ve never shared. I’m in love with you to the point that I wake up with you already on my mind, and go to sleep with hope that your day was lovely like you deserve. Maybe it’s better unspoken. It feels like I’m risking everything to admit it.

I’m not asking to be the center of your world, but I have to say you’re at the middle of mine. I know I’m special to you, but you’ve become irreplaceable to me.