hello. it's hard. it's hard because i couldn't articulate it when you were only a screen and a text bubble away and i can't articulate it now, harbours and miles and lost time between us. so i guess i'll start it the way we did: hello.

it's a bit melodramatic and embarrassing to write this note but so was i when we first met, and maybe i haven't changed in two, three, five years. maybe i won't. i'm not a writer or a poet, but i guess i'd try to be, for you.

it's stupid but i called it "love" because that's how you made me feel. enchanted, infatuated, foolish. youth itself.

sometimes i wonder if i knew you at all. maybe we were just a product of shallow digital trivialities, the paragon of an unrequited 21st century love. continental drift within a person. to think about it, two, nearly three years, and i might just know less than 1% of who you really are. i don't know if i'll ever find out.

i don't think you will ever know how important you were (are) to me. the friendship we shared is still so precious to me. i always did say that i miss you but i no longer know if it's because i miss the way we used to be, the way i don't think we'll ever be again. you've changed but somehow the way i feel about you never has. i love you, and i'm grateful to have been your friend when i could.

it feels too intimate to type this in a public space where anyone could see but i don't think i could ever tell this to your face. no closure is always better than getting hurt, as is the certainty of a quick universe that is rarely forgiving enough to grant second chances. but i have nothing to give you anymore. no more clever, romantic words can be spun out of a drift carved by time.

so i'll leave you this. a half-written confession, a love letter brimming full with vices and fragile sincerity. an apology, two years in the making. a memoir, a late-night recollection of us. maybe the postscript that should have been done long ago. i think i deserve that closure, at least.

but i don't think i can end it with a goodbye, not yet. even now, when you have never felt so far away. so i'll end it with this. i always got nervous speaking honestly and it's present even now, writing a confession you'll never read.

thank you. for letting me love you, in confidence, quietly, from afar.