a thought

Dependent

It's late and I'm tired and I don't think I have something that resembles a poem within me. Though my poems are more like sentences cropped and cut and pasted onto somewhat arbitrary lines. But still. I'll just write this to you - curled up in my bed towards the wall, holding Wobby as though someone else isn't in the room - as though I'm whispering, almost silent, my thoughts to you as we lie on our California king, a fire going, in our cabin that nobody knows about. But us.

My father told me tonight to go to a website and fill out a form for financial aid. According to him, I am no longer a dependent for them and I'll need to try for federal support. I didn't ask questions, I'm going to assume, considering I have no money and no job and a year left of college to go, that they're still going to pay for my next year of life. But it did get me thinking. About being a dependent, being independent, and, as usual, my train of thought traveled me to you-

I have always been a romantic. In relationships. In "love" with one boy and then the next. I've always thrown myself into whomever I chose for that month or six months or year. And I thought I knew everything. I truly thought during my last relationship, after my last relationship, that I had seen everything and felt everything and been in every sort of like and love and fall apart there could be in this world. I was wrong.

I was in love with 'love'. Now I'm in love - with you.

I have never been able to spend so much time with someone, 24, 48, 72+ hours with my boyfriend and never get tired, never get annoyed or angry or yearning for a moment to breathe on my own. You dropped me off some six hours ago, maybe seven, and I miss you. I miss your hands and your eyelashes. I miss your smile and calming presence and the way I fit in your right arm as we switch the channels from one forgettable show to the next, quietly letting the unforgettable quality to the day sink, unnoticed, into our skin.

I have always smiled and wished to myself when I watched a couple in the grocery store: both past seventy and moving no faster than ten centimeters per minute, guiding each other to the jams and juices. I don't wish anymore. I look forward to, I calculate, I amaze myself at the amount of adoration I feel for you after almost an entire year. Some would argue my joyful proclamations and boasts - reminding me it's only been a year. I say: those lucky few who stand around a cake and talk with old friends and grandchildren at their 50th anniversary don't have an unthinkable amount on me. I've just spent a tumultuous, challenging, and beautiful year with you. We made it through, and I've never been more in love with you than I am right now - and I will be more tomorrow. I know now that this is it. This is what I dreamed of as a little girl, this is what I stupidly assumed I had before and never even began to grasp. I've had close to one year now with the only person I've ever known, and can ever imagine to know, who I can spend every waking moment with for days on end, and miss after an hour apart. I've done this for a year, never straying, never ceasing, never lessening - I can absolutely do it for 49 more. And more. More.

So life moves forward, and starting just about now I'm going to have a lot on my plate and a lot to think about and situate and take on, but I know I can do it. Because I am a dependent. I am dependent on you. And the best part is, while girls are usually the more emotional and attachable, and so you probably don't feel quite so much necessity for me as I do for you - you don't make me feel silly for it. You have never once made me feel bad for needing or wanting you so much, and even when you must say no to time together, you promise me we'll be together soon, and you tell me you love me. You are my absolutely everything. You are truly the one person I have devoted and will continue to keep my every emotion for - for the next 49 years or more and more, however long you want me. I adore you, buballoo. And I just had to whisper that to you before I fell asleep, curled up in your arms and so safe. So safe. Always.

I am a dependent. Dependent on you. On us. On the best thing I have even experienced in my life. On the best person I have ever known, and the one who knows, without even trying, how to comfort and complete and care for me. Thank you. Thank you for making me, letting me love you - a lock bridge lot.