You’re desert flowers and shimmering sea glass, you’re cups of coffee with cutesy latte art. I want to know you, laugh with you, care for you, do unspeakable things to you. Try as I might, I can’t express to you how lucky I am to have met you last year. Inquisitive painter, powerful leader, soft kisser. I close my eyes and see yours.

I’m sorry. Lately, I miss you more than ever.

It’s cool that you’re open about crying at movies. I want to eat your brain, consume your entire realm of experience and make it my own, ingest all your knowledge and apply it unsparingly to my day-to-day life. Would-be small talk is particularly nice with you.

And there actually is something so romantic about unrequited love. Something that makes me want to pick the petals off flowers.

Sometimes as I’m starting my day, I’ll spontaneously recall all these snippets from dreams I had the night before. The process is surprisingly physical; it’s panic-inducing on a minor scale. This anxious feeling comes over me, like the one you get when forgetting to relay an important message. All that to say I’ve come to associate our time together with these unconscious recollections. Superficially, the connection between my dreams and our late-night talks is evident in that both usually take place between midnight and 7 a.m. They’re related in a deeper sense, though, tinged with the same hazily happy hue. I like being around you, but I don’t know how much longer we can go on.

I’m so tired, and for what? Anyhow, I was sent down such a path of self-indulgent analysis when I saw you this morning. You didn’t see me. I got a glimpse of you, and your self-assured gait was enough to make me reevaluate every step I’d ever taken. Cosmically beautiful, an ordinary silhouette set apart from the masses by what I could swear is a radiant gleam. I’m being overly romantic, but I imagine you get the picture.

More than I’d like to admit, I think back to when you handed me that white hotel towel that was somehow both scratchy and soft. How you then invited me to stay, but I buckled under the ever-pressing precocity of the unbelievable situation. 

I made a joke, followed by a swift exit. Ha! So what if I hear your voice in all my favorite songs? Forget you, man.

I still think about you. Maybe not you, but the warmth I used to feel around you. The general atmosphere. Things we’d do together. Over and over, I think that’s what it is, the interests we shared or the music you liked. Restaurants, sports teams, idiomatic phrases and tried movie references. It’s the things that tear at me, mostly. Not one is the same as it used to be.

A romantic relationship just isn’t something I can pursue right now. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. However, I’m not in the right headspace for the type of commitment you’re seeking.