I know you know it too. How you look at me and find me staring again, though silence turns up between us in the disguise of comfort. Upwelled by too many things we both know and chose not to say, I am always the one who turns away first as you are always the impatient one. I don’t want you to be the one who says it first.

I know you know it too. That I am not going anywhere, though neither are we. We are never the first name appeared on each other’s chat history. For we used to find comfort in our silence and to us words were just sentimental abundance. We have never spoken of promises, not out of a common fear that we would break them one day, but out of a blind faith that the present matters the most.

I know you know it too. Why we had wasted so much time dancing around each other, why I had to let go of your hand once my brain had your warmth memorized. Whenever we talked side by side on the street, whenever we sat face to face in a café, we were each other’s friends though our eyes said otherwise.

You talked about a future that I have never known of over a casual phone call one day as I slumped into my chair after an unproductive afternoon. I know you felt the same when I dog-eared a book and ordered a second cup of coffee the other day, frustrated by the crooked system we all live in.

I could not read the look in your eyes just like you could not hear the plea in my words.

Sitting alone in the house one midnight, I found myself mourning over everything and reassured my mom it was just the song I was listening to. Flipping to the page that I dog-eared days ago, I found myself smiling after a long time as I read.

“It is love that makes me completely fearless.”

I am now completely fearless as I no longer fear to lose you.

Ariel

16 March 2018