What it means to me:

Saying I love you is not something I do everyday. But when I say it, I mean it and that says a lot about me and you and what this means to me.

I love you means I want to be with you. If I could choose to see anyone, it would be you. I want to be sweet with you. I want to kiss your nose and text you that I hope your day is going well. I want to cook for you and ease your stress. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want manufactured drama. I don’t want resentment.

I want us to share everything. I want to put my head on your shoulder and talk about things while looking far away and be one person. I could write poems and sonnets and blog posts about you all day and it would still not feel like enough to let you know how scared I am by how I feel about you. I love you means I’m terrified and hopeful and terrified about letting myself be hopeful.

I love you means I smile when I think about you. I do nice things for you without being asked. I want you to be happy more than I want the sun to rise in the morning. I want to kiss every inch of your face. I want to hug you until neither of us are ever lonely again. I want to smell your T-shirt. I want to feel your hair.

I love you means I don’t want you to be sad, but I also want you to feel free to have whatever emotions you’re having. I want you to feel like you can be vulnerable and I will hold all the pieces very delicately and I will kiss them all as I put you back together. I want you to trust me. I want you to know that I never want to hurt you. I want to never be the reason you’re upset. I want you by my side, as my partner. I want to do mundane things with you like shopping for your shoes or buying your usb cord. I want to go places with you and eat with you and meet people with you.

I love you means I understand that you are flawed and that I am too. It means I don’t want to be selfish. I want all the simple things with you — and the hard things, and I want us to survive them and I don’t want to walk away. I love you means I want to earn this. I love you means I want to be let in and to let you in. I love you means I am so close to destroying this because that is all I know how to work with. I love you means I want to put in the work with you, because I think you’re special and I think you’re worth it. I love walking with you while we hold hands.

I love you means I want to sleep beside you and press myself against your back. I love you means I want to talk to you about everything and know everything about you. I love you means knowing you have no religion but you still compromise to go to church with me and pray with me willingly. I thank God to have you in my way. I want you to share what you’re thinking and I want you to feel safe doing that. I love you means I want us to be kind to each other, to want to be kind.

When I say, I love you, it means we will never be perfect and I accept that because I want everything about you that you've shown me so far. I love you means I want to consider you. I want to factor you into my plans. I want to know you see this as lasting too, maybe, and maybe that’s what really trips us up, right? In a good way though.

All these "wants" I've just listed off are the things we already did in a span of a month. I want to do them again with you. All I know right now is  I want to tell you that I already love you and though I'm filled with fear about where this is going and what will happen to us in the next five months and beyond, I still feel the need to tell you these words.

And that’s one inch of what I mean when I say, “I love you.” I don’t know if I have words for the rest. I am so overcome with how much you mean to me, with how much I feel toward you that I am actually at a loss for how to behave. I love you means I have nothing else. 

And I think...and I feel that you do really love me.

And I think...and I feel that I love you now.

Dearest Kim Giryong.