As I write these words, my hand trembles slightly— not from fear, but from the sheer magnitude of the emotion that compels me to confess. I’ve held my tongue, bitten my lip, and clenched my fists to keep from saying three words out loud: I love you.

You see, love isn’t something I ever took lightly. I’ve seen it flicker brightly only to be snuffed out by life’s whims. But my love for you is a flame I can no longer contain, a force of nature in its own right.

It’s in the way my thoughts drift to you when I first wake up and when I close my eyes at night. It’s in the way I imagine a future where you are a constant, like the North Star in a fickle sky. It’s in the way my heart feels fuller, lighter, yet profoundly anchored when you’re near.

I love you, not in the grand, cinematic gestures that vanish when the credits roll, but in the everyday moments, the subtle glances, and the unspoken understandings that make life extraordinary.

I don’t expect you to say it back; my confession isn’t a transaction. It’s a gift, a release of a truth that has become too big for my soul to house.

With this confession, I feel both vulnerable and invincible. For even if this love remains unrequited, saying it out loud—or rather, writing it down—gives it a form, makes it real. And that reality is both my strength and my weakness.