Letter X What we Carry

Letter X – “What We Can Carry” Shared. Unsent. A letter between two men who loved each other in a thousand unnamed ways. From You: I’ve turned the word “love” over in my hands like a stone, smooth from years of use. It doesn’t mean what it used to. Not yearning. Not ache. Not a life I dreamed of and had to grieve. Now, it means this: I want you in my life—fully, honestly. Not in the shadows of memory, but in the light of real presence. Even if it’s messy. Even if it hurts sometimes. I’m not asking for more than you can give. I’m only asking for what’s real. If we’re going to carry each other, let it be with both hands open. Let it be with eyes wide and hearts humble. Let it be what it is—friendship, maybe something more ancient than friendship— without apology, without shrinking. But if that’s too much… Then tell me. I won’t hate you. But I’ll let go. Because I need truth more than I need almost. You’ve always been braver than me. Clearer. I read your words and I feel both loved and undone. I don’t want to lose you. That’s the clearest thing I know. And yet, I don’t know how to be everything I wish I could be. But here is what I can offer: I will show up. Not perfectly. Not on cue. But truly. I will call. I will visit. I will hold space for you that is not stolen from someone else’s time, but made sacred in its own right. You’re right—we can’t live on maybe. So let this be what we build: A friendship with history in its bones and grace in its future. A love that is not afraid of names it cannot fit. A bond that remains, even when we are tired, even when the world pulls at us from every side. I choose you. Not in the old way. Not in a way that asks you to wait. But in the way that says: You are mine, still— in memory, in presence, in whatever form we can hold with open hearts. Together: We do not know what shape this will take. Only that it is. And that it matters. And that we will tend to it like a small, flickering fire in a clearing— safe, at last, from the storm.