this thing on? i've also been craving something. something i didn't know before. i always saw love outside of me, but never in. looking in from the outside, like you said, that was love for me. a hug. a kiss. a proposal. driving two states over and blaring the car horn outside of the house you know is hers because it's next to the library. in retrospect there are many reasons i never felt it as i do now. traumatic experiences combined with an isolating childhood, if we're being honest. the fear of it being real and what that would mean. opening up, connection, partnership. that was too much for me. but i hear the horn outside now and it makes me smile. i'm still afraid, of course, but i can't go back now. even if i get left in a ditch with my heart ripped out, i'd rather that than sit here and play dead. never, never, never again. because i'm not dead, i'm the most alive i've ever been. if i hadn't seen such riches i could live with being poor. so i'll chase it, until i drop dead or someone makes me. what am i chasing, exactly? from here, it looks like the horizon over the ocean. it almost seems like it's moving away from me the faster i swim. but sometimes, sometimes, sometimes it inches closer, i think. in that way, i know what the horizon feels like. to sit down at a little distance in the grass, closer and closer every day. but i want to swim faster. i don't want to sit. there is a drive in me that overcomes things, not to toot my own horn. so i will swim faster toward the horizon. i will not be afraid if the sun is setting or if the sky is lit by a pale moon. i will not be afraid of the water. i will not be afraid of the waves or the tide. i wonder which direction the horizon is looking. maybe up at the sun. or the moon. maybe beyond itself, maybe behind itself. i wonder where i am in its view. i wonder if i'm visible. i think i am.
i'm not going to tell you i wrote this part. if you find this you find this. i have to show you. i am pretending a little. more than a little. it's not easy for me, chasing you. much more than "not easy." the last thing i want to do is make you upset or hurt you, so i don't say anything. do i "swim" toward you every day? yes, of course i do. but it hurts. for many reasons. many reasons that i'm not so confident in believing or disbelieving. even if i make myself seem more confident than i am, the doubt is always there. i hate doubt. i hate uncertainty. i feign certainty with you, not only to ease your mind but my own as well. if i'm able to convince you i'm okay then i can convince myself as well. i know you understand that. sometimes i think i can't be loved. just in general. which is sad, sure, but that has nothing to do with you personally. maybe that's why i framed it that way. maybe that's why i cropped out the other part of my explanation. if i put it more generally, it probably won't hurt you as much. but i don't really know what to do. how am i supposed to preach honesty without being honest? if i'm being really honest with myself, and honest with you, it doesn't feel so general. maybe it's not just that i don't think people can love me in general. maybe i just don't think you do. or that you ever could. not that it's going to change anything. do you? i don't know what's happening. what is happening. what is happening. the three words i want to say but can't because fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. i refuse to stop but i'm terrified. you're at the airport now. about to leave. definitely shouldn't tell you about this. should i? i don't know. i still don't have the balls to say how this fully makes me feel. i'm going to stop writing this part now.