these days my heart hurts in a big way. aches, even.

on one hand, i think it finally happened. somehow in the past couple of months i feel like my heart has changed and the way i feel about him and us has changed. i always prayed that it would. i always prayed that i would, at the right time, get to the point where i would love him as much and as well as he loved me. and i think, for the first time, that maybe i do, or was starting to. isn't that great?

but now that i'm ready for him, i think he has moved on.

i can't really believe it myself. every day since the Talk i just wake up and cannot believe that he probably does not love me anymore, or that I probably will not get the chance to ever show him what we could be when we both love each other at the same time, in the same way.

i know all the cliches. i know everything will be ok, that there will be someone better, blah blah blah. i know anything's possible and that this could still work out, but... this feeling, it's like the worst one that i know. the ache, the emptiness, like when someone dies, but almost worse because this person is like ten feet away and despite my protesting and clawing and digging, I cannot save this. i'm sure you know the feeling.

i guess i don't know what God wants here. i don't know what the outcome is. it's probably good that i don't know. if he isn't the One, i'm not ready to deal with that yet. if he is, i'd probably screw it up.

i think the worst part is this: he is all over this place. he is in just about everything in my apartment. either he was with me when i bought it or he helped me put it together or he bought it for me. he helped me move everything, his hands have touched nearly everything i own, and he is all over. everything i own has been touched by his hands when they were filled with love for me. yet the reminder is not the same as reality anymore.

so what do i do? this isn't the same as the others. he and i have so many more memories in almost two years than i've had with any other. i still see him at least a couple times a week because we go to the same church, have the same friends, work for the same company. i have to give him space, but every bone in my body wants to be clingy. i don't really know how to act towards him in the presence of people we know. i can't really act like he's more special than anyone else, because it would make things even more awkward. i have a feeling that however i am will come across as me being angry, which i don't want. i want to be warm and engaging, funny and genuine. but genuine right now is lovesick. it's bursting into tears spontaneously and crying myself to sleep. it's not eating, simply because i'm not hungry and because no food is appetizing or enjoyable to me.

in a way it is beautiful to me that i care this much, finally. all this pain and crying and everything-- it is all grieving. and i read somewhere that the extent to which you grieve over a loss of a person is a testament to how much you love them. grief is like a love song.

but i remember when he wrote me a love song. there was more than one, but one i find exceptionally beautiful. it was a poem he wrote to me as a part of a compilation of letters he collected from my friends to me for my graduation.

I remember her so pure

Oh how blessed I felt to kiss her hand --

(if it may not be called a heavenly instrument of purity grand)

in that soft candlelight,

in the air that sweet spring night.

...the moment I desire for every day's end for ever more:

when my hands --

(if they may not be called foreshadowing extensions of love just began)

were delivered from the lackluster chains of a searching heart

and ran through the blond strands of her silken crown.

Hindsight is 20/20 and my heart screams,

"There is your perfection! There you should pause me!"

With urgent distress my eyes chime in,

"Do what you must to make this sight your future

For now, any beauty which is not this,

is better received by the blind."

"Do you remember," speaks my mind,

"how the smooth light draped the room in a reverb of peace,

which gently cradled the curves of her saintly face?

And how she, without knowing nor trying,

Naturally took that peaceful light

And the air that sweet spring night

in the magnificent silence of that upstairs room,

With her eyes closed in a serene stare,

And reduced the surroundings, however perfect,

To simply a fine grain of sand

set before the foot of a mountain

That is her holy, innocent, pure essence?"

it was signed, "All my love forever, Dan."

i hope He makes an honest man of you.