My dearest,

Hey, I’ve been trying to understand what I feel for you for a long time now.

The truth is, I’ve never been in love before.

I’ve never been in a relationship. I’ve never been in any kind of talking stage or anything that links up to having relationships. I’ve never experienced rejection. I’ve never had someone occupy my mind like this. So, when people talk about love, I don’t really know what they’re talking about because I’ve never had anything to compare it to.

That’s why this has been so confusing.

We barely talk.

Most of our conversations are all unnecessary and not worth remembering. They’re short, casual, and usually end as soon as they begin.

Nothing extraordinary has happened between us…

And maybe that’s exactly why I can’t understand why I feel this way.

Because if someone asked me what you’ve done to make me like you this much, I wouldn’t know how to answer.

All I know is that somewhere along the way, I started paying attention.

I started looking for your name without meaning to.

I started noticing when you were around.

I started caring about things that probably meant nothing to you.

I remember responding to your message about a school matter and thanking you for reminding me.

You never replied.

You didn’t react to the message.

You probably forgot about it the moment you saw it.

But I remembered.

Not because it was a big deal.

But because that’s what happens when someone becomes important to you.

Small things stop feeling small.

And I think that’s when I realized the difference between us.

You can go through your day without thinking twice about me.

Until then, I find myself wondering why I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.

Sometimes I ask myself if I’ve created a version of you in my head that doesn’t even exist.

Because the truth is, I don’t know you as much as I’d like to.

I only know that every time I tell myself to stop caring, I somehow end up caring even more.

And maybe the difficult thing is knowing that you never asked for any of this.

You never led me on.

You scarcely interacted with me.

You never made promises.

You never gave me reasons to believe you felt the same way.

You’ve been exactly who you’ve always been.

I’m just the one who started feeling something I wasn’t prepared for.

Maybe that’s why this is excruciating.

Not because you rejected me.

You never did.

Not because I lost you.

You were never mine to lose.

It feels torturing because every day I carry feelings that have nowhere to go.

Feelings I can’t elucidate.

Feelings I never anticipated.

Feelings for someone who may never know how much they changed me just by existing in my life.

And maybe one day these feelings will fade.

Maybe one day I’ll look back and laugh at how much space you took up in my head.

But right now, all I know is that this is the first time I’ve ever felt something like this.

And I don’t know what to do with it.

What I do know is that, somehow, I find myself grateful.

Grateful for you.

Not because we became something.

Not because you loved me back.

Not because we shared countless conversations or memories.

Because none of those things happened.

But despite that, you became the first person who made me feel this way.

The first person who made me understand that there was a version of me I had never met before.

A version of me that could care this deeply about someone.

A version of me that could stay up thinking about another person.

A version of me that could be vulnerable.

Before you, I never thought I was capable of any of this.

I never thought I would be the type of person to stay up late at night till morning just to finish writing those prose poems I made for you.

I never thought I would dedicate my Medium account to just writing my feelings about you and set them to private because I don’t want to share you.

I never thought I would be the type of person to write something like this.

I never thought I would be the type of person to feel this much.

And yet here I am.

I still don’t know if what I’m feeling is love.

I still don’t fully understand any of it.

Some days it makes me happy.

Some days it hurts me.

Most days it’s both at the same time.

But strangely enough, I don’t regret it.

Because for the first time in my life, I got to experience something that felt real.

Something that made me learn more about myself.

Something that showed me parts of my heart I never knew existed.

And for that, thank you.

Thank you for being the first person who ever made me feel this way.

Thank you for unknowingly bringing out a version of me that I could have never imagined.

You probably have no idea any of this exists.

You probably don’t know how much space you’ve occupied in my thoughts.

You probably don’t know that you’ve changed me at all.

But you did.

And whether these feelings stay or eventually leave, I think a part of me will always be grateful that the first person who taught me what it meant to feel something this deeply was you.