I am afraid to say I regret, because I get stuck on things like this so easily, and besides all those big choices I've made, "mistaken" or not, have shaped who I am today.

Maybe small things are alright, like sleepily speaking out in class; doing things out of turn or off-topic; embarrassing myself; but otherwise, I should go no further.

I am who I am and I've done what I've done.

I have to move forward.

Why do you cry when you say goodbye?

Hugging in the airport, moving halfway across the world, halfway across the country;

Graduation caps flying through the air at high school, then at college;

We'll keep in touch, so why do you cry?

Look at how easy it is!

Facebook, FaceTime, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram—

Need I go on?

Why do you cry?

...

Because people say that you only keep so many for life.

Because I only knew you as part of a group that no longer exists.

Because people grow,

And people change,

And I won't be there for any of it.

And messages stop coming over time,

And social media can only do so much—

Before it feels like you're stalking a stranger

rather than following a friend,

And sometimes you miss the ones you were never really close to.

Because I know our relationship isn't strong enough to last.

That's why.

Is this love

or am I settling in to a comfort zone; too fast, too easy?

Am I in love?

Or are we just too similar; a pair of stale magnets that neither repel nor attract. Are we just too comfortable, destined to never change for the better or for the worse, and maybe that’s the worst of all in the end.

I think you deserve someone better—or rather, need someone different. It seems like we agree on every front, and maybe that’s not a good thing. We amplify each other’s anxieties, enable each other’s bad habits, allow for everything and anything between us to pass.

We never talk about our demons because those, too, are the same.

I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I’ve been waiting for us to clash, for something to spark, for you to reveal that I never really knew you at all. Do I annoy you? Do I cling too much? You’ve never been the type to say so, even when asked. We’re both pushovers, but you really take the cake in the end. And what if that nature of yours shifts, and I’m none the wiser? If I unknowingly push your buttons one too many times and you decide you’ve had enough?

Hey, am I special to you at all?

If I were to ever envision an end to Us, it would be like that line from the T.S. Eliot poem; that this is how it ends—not with a bang but a whimper. We’d drift. You’d contact me less and less, and I’d be unsettled but not spurred into action. A dull ache; a lingering affection that’ll never quite go away; never quite knowing what went wrong. This is how it ends.

Until then...until then. I will admit I am in love.