Equal.

For N.

Truth is, I want to chain you to my body. Since day One. It's true, there's no such thing as love at first sight. It's not love. It's something more akin to recognition. So what about changing the old "I fell in love with you at first sight" for a "I recognized you at first sight"? It's prettier, simpler, truer. I did, I recognized you at first sight. In the course of an instant. I recognized the way you talked, the way you walked, the things you said. There are no surprises in life is my new motto. There are only surprised people. From then on, after Day One, it was all pretty much announced. This letter that I never wrote and the ones that will follow. The nights spent breathing in your pheromones, those that you warned me, since the start, that I'd become addicted to. Oh, and I did. But not then, N. I did so much earlier, since the very beginning, since that first night drinking chai tea and giving you an unnecessary ride home, because you lived so close anyway. It was hanging there behind every silence, awkward, latent, waiting. I knew it, you knew it, we each knew that the other knew it. And yet. Latent, waiting. I see you. It is less terrifying than I thought it'd be. It feels. Lighter. Like a resolution. Like a sigh of relief. It feels light. N, I say to myself. Just that, just your name. N. And somehow, I am able to face the world again with strength. So I have to thank you. For the mere fact of your impossible existence. For the eyes of green silence that see so many things invisible to me. For your hands. For your quietude. For allowing me to care for you in the smallest, least intrusive way I could find. For the gift that it is to know that I've met my equal.