goddamn jay. i love you still. i love you always.

looking at you, there’s this quiet sadness that sits in me because somehow, i already know we are not each other’s endgame. we are good right now. we are together. we exist in this moment like it’s enough. but love has a way of whispering truths before they happen, and mine keeps telling me that one day, we will have to let go of each other. whether it ends softly or shatters loudly, it will still hurt the same. the thought that there will come a time when you are no longer mine feels like grieving something that hasn’t even left yet. i only see people this deeply when i care. and i care about you more than i expected to. from the first moment i met you, there was something about you that felt unfamiliar in a way that both scared and pulled me in. your mind, the way you process the world, the way you carry yourself without even trying. you challenged the things i thought i already understood. you unsettled me. and yet, slowly, gently, i found peace in that unfamiliarity. you became something i did not need to understand completely to feel safe with. maybe one day someone else will learn you the way i did. maybe they will sit across from you and notice the same small details. but no one will ever have my version of you. i am grateful for that. grateful that for a moment in time, you were mine to know. you are impulsive in the way a spark catches fire without asking permission. you know what you want, even if you are unsure how long you will want it. you move first and think later. it is not always careful, but it is honest. when it comes to plans, you are steady. you lead, you decide, you make things happen. yet your room tells a different story, scattered pieces of you left in corners without much thought. and i used to think, if you were with me long enough, i would not mind fixing the little chaos around you. i would not mind being the quiet order to your noise. you are twenty-seven, yet there are moments when you laugh like a boy who has not been hardened by the world. that is my favorite version of you. the playful one. the silly one. the one who lets me see the softness behind the confidence. it makes me feel chosen, like i am allowed into a part of you that not everyone gets. you call yourself average, as if that word could ever hold you. you are not average. not in the way you think, not in the way you feel, not in the way you make space feel different just by standing in it. you fidget when you are restless. your legs bounce without you even realizing, like there is always a current running through you that refuses to be still. i try to stop you sometimes, but it is just you being you. you have made mistakes. you carry regrets. but you are not the worst thing you have done. as long as you grow from them, as long as you choose better, there is still so much goodness ahead of you. your smirk tilts to one side, almost arrogant at first glance, but i know better. i know the gentleness behind it. you always have music playing, one earpod in, like the world needs a soundtrack to make sense. when you share it with me, when we listen to the same song at the same time, it feels strangely intimate. like for a few minutes, we are living inside the same heartbeat. i memorized the shape of your nose, the soft curve that looks like a heart when i stare long enough. i noticed the moles scattered across your skin, on the back of your palm, behind your left ear, hidden places only closeness reveals. these are the details that make you real to me. tangible. human. mine, at least for now. and that is where the ache begins. because i know i could love you fiercely. i could build something steady with you. i could imagine a future where we grow older side by side. but love is not built on what only one person can imagine. it takes two people choosing the same future. lately, you feel different. the little things you used to do so naturally have faded into memory. maybe it is just my fear speaking. maybe it is my heart preparing itself. but i feel the shift, even in the quiet. still, i love you. that part has never been uncertain. what scares me is the thought of you loving someone else the way you once loved me, or worse, more. i wanted it to be us. i wanted the growth, the maturity, the becoming better, to lead us back to each other. but this has never been something i could carry alone. it has always been me and you, or nothing at all. i do not know what will become of us. i only know that whatever imprint you leave on my life, i pray it does not turn bitter. i hope when i remember you, it feels warm instead of sharp. i hope you become a memory i can hold without breaking. i love you. deeply. in a way that does not disappear just because the future is uncertain. and if we are not meant for forever in this lifetime, i will still be grateful that for a while, we existed in the same story. that i got to love you. and that, in your own way, you loved me too.