hello. it's been a year, right? i hope the world has been kind to you in our absences to each other. i didn't really think there'd be a pt. 2 but i'm terribly sentimental at heart. reflection is hard but letting go is harder.

everyday i wish i could tell you how i feel. i wish i could know you'd say if i did. would you be surprised? sometimes i think about it, in moments of childish impulse, but those are brief and short lived, quickly crushed by the iron hand of my own cowardice.

i still think of you often, but more with the fondness of a well-worn friendship now. warm and steady, a bit like a candlelight. there's moments where i feel still strangled by this sticky, frozen caramel feeling i'd best call "love in circadian progression", but time brings acceptance, as promised. that, at least, i am grateful for.

i'm really a broken record at this point; i don't know how many ways i can write a loveletter without the words i love you.

writing this akin to reaching down my throat and pulling out from the wishing well the most intimate part of myself, unsticking the words that i carefully crush into the smallest, darkest box of me. i'm no stranger to hurt, but somehow this doesn't feel like it. it feels like emptiness, but in the best way possible.

emotions are hard to say for me always, but you're a good one. you've always been.

i don't have a goodbye to end this note with, and i'm sick of always wanting one. thank you for teaching me that love can be both painful and precious. for letting me keep you.