dear brendon.

the advice that i always give to my close friends is to talk to a lover as if they were a best friend - the words come more easily, sound natural, and are better understood. so i'm going to try and do that with you, which means that this is going to follow my stream of conciousness and probably make a fuckton of nonsense, but it's worth a try.



no matter how many times i say i love you, it never seems like...enough.
like the words are pale in comparison to what i feel for you.
it seems like the words are almost an insult - cheap, somehow, and therefore not worthy of you.


the truth is that you mean the entire world to me.
people think we've moved too fast, been too on-and-off, should meet first, whatever.
even having never seen your beautiful face or kissed your beautiful lips or heard your voice,
you are the man i want.
forever.
and i would literally choose you over all of those who don't understand this.
my mother's never going to be able to make sense of it.
she'll hate me for it.
she'll hate you for 'changing' me.
when i announce that i'm madly in love and engaged to a transboy who is jetsetting around the world,
she is flat-out going to have a heart attack and die.
before, with anyone else, that would have scared me.
but suddenly, now... it doesn't.
i really don't care.
it's funny how love can shrink your world down to one person.
if my mother & family can't accept you, i'll pick you over them, every time.
nobody has /ever/ loved me or taken care of me like you.
it's so... strange.
to think that someone as beautiful and handsome and smart and talented and kind as you, someone who is so much of a catch and could literally have anyone he wants, wants me.
little old me.
sometimes i wonder what you must see when you look at me.
your average out of shape 16 year old black kid, who is hiding her sexuality from her parents and completely misunderstood by the world at large, who is nothing special and nobody noteworthy.
and yet, you love me.
don't you understand?
that is the simple most incredible thing in the entire world.
i've never felt like this about anyone before.
i mean, sure, i've been in love. i've had relationships before.
but never this feeling of... certainty.
this always knowing, sometimes showing /certainty/ that you are my soulmate,  and the man i'm meant to be with forever.
sometimes i worry that we won't make it through this year of apart.
sometimes i worry that we're going to drift so far apart that we'll be strangers when we finally do get to be together.
that if i don't pester you via text and email and olive's influence, you'll get so wrapped up in your work that you forget me.
and then i get angry.
i know that you love me, and i know that you miss me,
so how is it that sometimes i feel like the only one fighting for this to work?
maybe that's it.
maybe that's your secret.
you aren't fighting for it because you already know it's there.
you've got this faith in our love that is unlike anything i've ever known.
any uncertainty i have is met with your certainty, and the deep well of faith you always seem to be drawing from.
you aren't pushing and working and sweating and stressing what you already know will always be there.
that our love will withstand anything, no matter how much and how often it is tested.
kind of like... really good mozzarella, like the kind you get on pizza in rome?
it stretches and stretches and stretches for what seems like miles, but it doesn't break until it's forcibly cut.
it bends to what seems like unimaginable limits, but it /doesn't break./
it's like us.
we have every reason to give up on this.
you're white. i'm black. you're trans. i'm two spirit. there are between three and six thousand miles separating us at any given time. we have insecurities and shortgivings and miscomings. the world isn't going to like this one bit.
and yet, for every reason that we have to give up, there are a million reasons not to:
the way i feel when you say you love me.
the way getting a text or an email from you makes me smile so big that everyone around me notices.
the way that talking to you still gives me butterflies, after all this time.
the fact that it has been 310 days since you first said you loved me, and it still feels like the first time, /every/ time.
the way that your name next to mine looks so right.
the way i sometimes write 'konold' as my last name without even thinking about it.
the way that you always know what to say to make my day better.
the way when 'the day met the night' comes on my stereo, i turn it up, lay back, and feel such a rush thinking of you.
what we have is kind of like electricity.
it's volatile, and it's loud, and it's unpredictable, and it's got the power to kill and ravage and destroy if it's not taken care of. but with you and i, it's like when lightning strikes the sand. it's scary and it seems like it should demolish everything around it with it's sheer force, but it results in something rare and beautiful that most people are never even privileged enough to see.
the force of it takes my breath away. 
you make me want to tear up the roots here i have in this tiny house in this tiny corner of this tiny, small minded state, so i can put down new ones with you in seattle, or england, or paris.
can you just imagine?

if we lived in seattle, we'd live in some grungy apartment surrounded by coffee shops. and we'd never have a moment's silence, between the unceasing rain and the dirty rock clubs filled to bursting with kids just like us and the oncoming traffic. we'd slow dance in the rain every night, and drink hot coffee once we'd gone inside and dried off, sniffling and curled up on the floor, our wet hair leaving puddles on the hardwood floors. i might work in a book store, or a coffee shop, or i'd spend my days in record stores searching for inspiration while you modeled by day and played your guitar for me at night. we wouldn't have a lot of money or a lot of things, but /god,/ we would have so much. we could wake up to each other, in our tiny bedroom on our mattress or our futon, and i'm not much of a morning person but i'd learn to be so i could bring you breakfast in bed - french toast, hazelnut coffee, strawberries and cream, and a sunflower balanced in my teeth. we'd spend hours in bed, listening to music and talking about life and our future together, and we'd be so happy with the little that we had. like kurt cobain and courtney love on their best days, when they first met or after they had frances, when life was sunshine and roses and so /sweet/ that it didn't seem to be real.



or if we lived in england...hm. we might live in london, at the centre of things - our flat windows would be lit up by big ben and the london eye, and the soundtrack of our nights would be the tourists and the brits mingling on the streets below. one night we'd decide to go for a walk in honour of the first snow fall of the year, and get into our 'winter attire,' and off we'd go. we'd be walking down the main avenue thing, when we'd decide to cut into a little park, the normally green foliage dusted in white. and we'd come across the statue of peter pan, bronzed and pointing off somewhere in the distance. being the peter pan dork that i am, i'd smile and say, "The second star to the right..." and you'd come up behind me and wraps your arms around me, kissing the side of my face. "And straight on til morning."  you'd whisper, grinning. i'd spin away, bolting off into the snow, challenging you to catch me. you'd chase after me, finally tackling me and sending me into grass coated in snow. we'd both be giggling and laughing and our clothes would be getting wet, and you'd lean down to kiss me, and it'd the most perfect moment ever.  i don't even /like/ the snow, but moments like that would make england worth it. and we'd spend our nights watching coupling and doctor who and black books, while drinking tea and eating sweets from that shop down the street with the lollies that i just couldn't get enough of, completely content in our sloth and our gluttony.

or, god, in paris! we'd both have to learn french better, if we were gonna live there. but think about it. we'd live in some villa, tucked away at the very edge of the city, and lay in bed until the sleep was drawn out of us in lazy spirals by the dawn, our bodies clad only in sunshine and bedsheets. for breakfast we'd have crepes with strawberries and creme on top, with maybe a rose in a tall, slender vase at the edge of the table? with coffee or orange juice, of course. we'd take our time eating in the nook of a kitchen we'd have, or out on our balcony overlooking all of paris, chewing slowly and revelling in the sheer culinary mastery that is french cuisine. we'd spend our days exploring the streets of paris, ducking in and out of cathedrals hundreds of thousands of years old, looking at the latest fall fashions that you would be donning as the trees were doffing their changing leaves. we'd spend hours upon hours in the louvre, examining some of the most beautiful art the world has to offer piece by piece by extraordinary piece. we might have a simple picnic in a nearby park, then if we were feeling ambitious, climb to the top of the eiffel tower just in time to watch the sun set over parisian glory. when we finally found it in ourselves to trek back down, we'd walk along the seine and watch the play of the city lights on the water, rippling and breaking and kaleidoscoping, and we'd finally understand what da vinci saw when he painted starry night. we'd sneak back to our love nest and make love by the light of the moon, slow and unhurried, and i'd bask in the ecstasy of you lying next to me.

and that's just while we're young! sure, we'd call home and maybe even visit, once our parents stopped being so angry at us for running away to fall in love in the safety and anonymity of the big cities they'd never wanted us to fall prey to. we might return to san diego and montana to explain ourselves, eventually.

and our wedding. god, love, our wedding.

when we get married, i've decided to change my name to 'lily ignites the dawn.'
because your love literally makes me feel like i could set the sky on fire.

i always knew that there had to be a reason people wrote things like:
romeo&juliet
the notebook
as you like it
love is a mixtape
"kiss me" by sixpence none the richer
"i love how you love me" by phil spectre
"at last" by etta james
[whoa, i just got the worst sense of deja vu. what the fuck.]
"if you leave" by OMD
"more than words" by BBMak

the list goes on and on and on.

i knew there had to be a reason, but i could never figure it out.
i mean, i'd always hoped that i'd live to know a love like this.

the kind of love
that makes you excited to
wake up in the morning,
because it's one more day
spent with the love of your life.

that makes you sad to go to sleep because you can't talk to them anymore for the day,
but happy because you'll be dreaming of them.

that makes you physically feel their pain
that makes you care more about their well-being than your own.

that makes you believe in forevers,
and ever-afters,
and millenia,
and eternities,
and all of those words adults tell you mean nothing.

the kind that teaches you to sacrafice.
that teaches you how to be the bigger person sometimes.
that teaches you to never go to bed angry
when you can stay up and fight.
that teaches you to love someone,

even when they make it difficult.

the kind of love that makes you want to scream and cry and laugh
scream because you're just fucking bursting with emotion
cry because you're absolutely terrified that you're going to lose it
laugh because holy fuck, you've just found the greatest love in all the world.

but i digress, as i usually do.

the truth is that you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.

as a society, we're taught to believe
that all marriages end in divorce,
everyone grows apart,
that there are no fairytales.

and for the last sixteen years, i've believed them.

and now that i'm with you, it seems so foolish of me to have ever thought anything like that.

adults are always telling us that we're too young.
we're too young to know anything, to be together, to fall in love, to talk about marriage.
just because i'm 16, i shouldn't know what love feels like?
young love is the best kind!

we're young, we're in love, and we've got our entire lives in front of us.
the world is just waiting to open it's arms to envelope us in every wonder it possesses.

how could there ever be anything better?

they say love is persistent, but never pushy.
and they're right. we have to be persistent in our emails, and our texts, and our love over this distance, because otherwise we'd never make it.

it's odd to me that i honestly believe we'll make it.
usually i have doubts, and worries, and fears of infidelity, but i don't.
i know that once we get over this hurdle of 6,000 miles

you and i are in it to win it.

we've already talked about promise rings and what our wedding is gonna be like,
and all that's left is for one of us to propose...
which i am going to do in october, on your birthday.

i feel so good about us.

you and i have been through so much shit in our lives, sugar.
we deserve this.
we deserve each other.
we deserve to let the beauty of our love wash away all of the filth and the grime of the lives we led before we met.
so let's erase the past and try harder to forget, yeah?

you're absolutely all i need.

if i'm the sun who lights up your life,
you're the moon who guides me through my nights.


until the day meets the night,
lily ignites the dawn.