listen - i know i still have heart. though some mornings it feels more like a heavy slab of stone and others nothing more than a wisp of air.  and my voice may be small, but i can still speak, i can still cry out in the middle of the night or whisper to my pillow love songs to you that you'll never hear.  and i can walk.  i have two legs, i can get up and stand on my own two feet, though most the time it feels more like crawling.  but i can, i can do it if need be.  and.  i do believe in love.  i believe in it with all my being.  but - look, i also believe in santa.  i believe in the easter bunny and yetis and the loch ness monster, too.

people tell me these things are nothing more than a child's fantasy - naive, imagined.  and so, maybe love is too.  

no - i don't want you to think i don't love you, i do.  i love you so much most days i can't breathe.  i love you so much it kills me.  to the point where some days i'd rather run away, like james, curl up inside that giant peach and never move again.  i love you so much, some days i sleep until six at night, wake up expecting your voice, and, upon receiving silence, go back to sleep.

see look - i made a list to determine whether or not love was some childlike fantasy, and the only argument i could come up with as to why it wasn't is that a child's fantasy would never hurt so bad.

and here - i can't remember how it felt to be a child, i guess i tried to grow up too fast.  so i don't remember how it felt to come downstairs and see my mother putting presents under the tree instead of some big jolly man, and i don't remember how it felt when my big sister informed me that the easter bunny was just some lie.  i don't remember if it hurt or if i cried or if i curled up into a ball and didn't move for a straight-day.  i don't remember, but -

i imagine it felt something like this.