i fell in love with someone i barely knew.
and i know how strange it is
and i’ve tried to tell myself that i did not love them
but for some insane and terrifying reason
too much of me cared for too much of them to believe it
he was calm and cool and everything he said was warm.
i met him once and suddenly i was comfortable.
i didn’t care that my glasses were dirty, or that my hair wasn’t brushed.
he saw me.
he saw who i actually was
we sat on the couch and ate breakfast at 3 am.
i looked at him when he laughed at the low budget horror movie on the screen.
i looked at him when he sang along to an overplayed pop song on the radio.
i had been with him for less than 48 hours and i loved him.
not the kind of love where i would die without him,
or the kind that made me want to get on one knee and ask him to marry me,
but i fell in love with how he felt.
i fell in love with the way he laughed at crappy netflix movies,
and the way he liked his coffee black.
he didn’t try so hard to love life, but you could tell he loved it. oh god he loved it.
he didn’t have to say it.
for such a long time i couldn’t figure out how
to love a life or a world that was so cruel,
but meeting him made me wonder how i’ve been living the way i have for so long.
i told him things about myself that no one else knew.
i told him how sometimes i stare at my ceiling and wonder what it would be like if i never woke up.
i told him about how my father left, and how empty and unwanted i’ve felt since.
i told him how i hated feeling that way because the only thing i’ve ever wanted
was to be my own person, and the fact that the decisions of some other person
affected me so much tortured my mind.
and when i saw him feel, i finally realized
that i was so much more than i thought i was.
and it is not because i was validated by
a boy i’d known for a day that i finally realized this,
but it was seeing how he felt about the world that was given to him.
and now i can let these things go.
suddenly for the first time in my life, i felt like i belonged to no one else but me.
i was so much more than someones daughter that they did not love.
i was more than an obligation to a distant friend that felt they had to text once a week.
i was so much more than the girl who fell in love with a boy she barely knew.
so, no.
i did not fall in love with this person because they paid me the attention i wasn’t used to.
i did not fall in love with this person because they laughed at my jokes or held my hand.
i did not fall in love with this person because of the color of their eyes, or the way they looked in mine.
i fell in love with this person because they were’t just a person.
i fell in love with this person because they felt so much all at once
for a world and life i wanted so desperately to leave.
i fell in love with this person because
they showed me that the world is just too big to find only the bad and cruel.
too much of me cared for too much of the only thing that made sense in such a long time.
it was not a romantic love.
he was a feeling.
and i know that i will never see him again,
i will never hold his hand or watch a bad horror movie,
or laugh at his laugh again.
and i know that he did not love me,
and my presence was not as significant as his.
and this is okay, because i did not love him in a way that he could replicate.
i know these things.
and still i can’t help but think of him when the sun warms my shoulders.
i can’t help but think of him when i feel
the genuine love from a stranger in passing who wanted to tell me hello.
i think of him when the world is good.
and there are people that i meet that i will care for and love,
but i can’t help but think of the fact that no one else
can make me feel and see the same things he did.
the people that we love
are the ones who show us that staying on this planet
is worth the torture of staring at the ceiling in middle of the night.
so, yes.
i fell in love with someone my mind barely knew.
and i just don’t think i will ever know a love just like that one.
Cry Hard Laugh Harder 