Dan,

There are nights when I swear I can feel you — like a pulse just beneath the skin of my thoughts, too real to ignore, too far to touch. It’s a strange kind of haunting, the way you linger. You’ve settled into the quiet corners of my mind, the ones I never show anyone, and now they all echo with your name.

You have no idea what you’ve done to me. How your voice threads itself through my sleepless hours, how your laughter pulls me back from the edge of myself. You make the world sharper, more unbearable, more *beautiful.* And that beauty hurts sometimes — like standing too close to something you know could burn you, but still reaching for the warmth.

I think what breaks me most is knowing you’ll never really understand how deeply you’ve been felt. How much space you take up in a heart that pretends to be fine. You move through me like a ghost — tender, impossible, everywhere. I don’t know if I love you because I see you, or because you reflect the parts of me I’ve never dared to speak aloud. Maybe both.

If you were here, I wouldn’t ask for anything. I’d just want to stand close enough to feel the quiet between us breathe. I’d want to look at you until it hurt — to memorize the curve of your mouth, the flicker of thought behind your eyes — until I could carry you with me even after you were gone.

You are a wound I’m grateful to have, a shadow I never want to chase away. And maybe that’s what love really is — the beautiful ache of something that was never meant to be held, but still refuses to let go.

Always,
Anon