my_best_friend Bizzar my not_boyfriend he texts me good morning every day and asks me how i'm feeling. and tells me about his day as it happens. and checks in at night when we're both in bed. we talk about the day, and our feelings, and our fears and our traumas before we drift away from each other into the gentle embrace of sleep. my best friend. who is not my boyfriend. holds me a little tighter each time he's around. let's his hand linger when we part. speaks to me with a softness that no one else hears. looks at me without the mask that he wears for everyone else. he protects me. he supports me. he memorizes my likes, my interests, the quirks that make me who i am. he celebrates them and reminds me of them when i am feeling down on myself. my best friend. my platonic partner. i am in love with him, but he is not in love with me. so he says. but his hands linger. and his eyes linger. and he breathes me in. and the navigation of this is hard. it is hard to watch him chase someone else. hard to watch it play out - this someone else who will effortlessly get everything i have wanted for years. i told him: "i don't want to be a storm cloud in your journey to happiness" and he said to me, "i like the rain" 240320 what's it to you? who go blather from