Maybe Love Doesn't Change

I loved you.

And I never really understood how much that word weighed until I started carrying it in my pockets.

I marveled at how it sunk deep into my vocabulary and took over every syllable left in my mouth.

I tried so hard to plan out the confession and the speech I would deliver to you so beautifully. But that word, with all its weight, foiled those plans.

Things changed quicker than I could exhale a breath.
I was in the middle, before I saw it all begin.

And that’s how fast love happens.
It doesn’t politely knock on your door, or mail itself to you in an envelope, waiting to be opened.
It just storms through your life and steals you.

And then…

On the phone, hours into a cool September night, I stuttered to you. I said your name.
You were rambling and I had long stopped listening.

In my head, all I heard was my own thoughts I love you, I love you, I love you.

I said your name again. You stopped. A pause. A breath for me to deliver something eloquent.

And then, I released those weighted words.
 I told you how you’d taken over my life, how your friendship filled me up and held me in place; the way I was falling softly and crashing hard all at the same time; and that I was there-
I was in love with you.

You said, “Wow.”

You took a breath.  You said nothing. I waited. I panicked.
And as I was fighting the urge to hang up on you, you began rambling.
You rambled like I had just rambled.
And then…

“I love you.”

It’s funny when I think back on it now.

How careful we were. How much those words weighed.
How we exhausted them for the next couple of months, saying them over and over, texting and typing those words out so perfectly, reminding one another again and again and again.

Now when I look at you, I say them silently.
When you go in for a hug, I dodge you like a bee.
I cower. I pull back.

I tuck that love back in my pockets and continue to let it weigh me down.
It’s made a campsite in my heart, burning veins to keep itself warm, destroying me from the inside out.

It burns to speak to you. It burns to breathe around you.
My body is a smoky entry.
My mouth tastes of hurtful words and emotions I expelled carelessly.

Arms empty.
Palms cold.
Pockets heavy.
I am weak.

I miss you like the flowers miss sunshine.

We don’t say much when we see each other.
We laugh.
We bond.
We’re friends.

We weave everything into our silences.
The I’m sorry’s.
The forgive me’s.

The I love you’s.

I remember us talking about how breakups get better.
How no matter what, we’d both be fine down the road.
How we’d get over it and date other people.
How the love would dissipate and leave.

Maybe we were wrong.

Maybe now, staring down year number 2 apart, we had it wrong.

Maybe love will always weigh down our pockets.
And maybe there will always be tents pitched in my heart.

Maybe love doesn’t change.

Maybe we just have to…