I am making a list of things I should tell you but haven't.

Someday I may say these things little by little but usually words fail me and in the end I probably won't. I will make up for it in small ways whenever I remember. That may sound careless - you may prefer coming home to a trail of rose petals - but honestly that would mess up the hardwood, and showing love in contrived ways like that is way too easy.

When I've saved up for a ring you won't know when. Or maybe you will. And when I propose it will be as an afterthought while you are making pasta. It will be an afterthought to these mornings waking up together, dinners at home, me writing you letters and posting them on the internet - a massive catalog of little things piled up high which no ceremony, no matter how lavish (people spend thousands on these things) can move.

I was really, really lonely before I met you. If you had sensed this, we probably would not be where we are today, because, my dear, my loneliness is neither the artistic nor musical kind. Even still I screen my movements because I know you still watch me. The little bits of gratitude that slip when you come home are not deliberate, I swear to God, but there is so much more waiting to scare you away (and my heart knows that I still can, you can scare anyone away).

I wore your shirt yesterday, the Von Dutch one. It's a guy's shirt, right?

Songs that used to remind me of my exes remind me of you. You don't know it, but I have been on a steady campaign to replace the memories I have of them with ones of you. When we went to the zoo I made sure we walked by places I took pictures at with other women and deleted from my hard drive aeons ago. Long-past entry level psych courses tell me that this is some kind of conditioning, probably. I don't remember, that's kind of the point.

This gesture is like a tiny macroscopic representation of the huge giant thing driving me for you, to you, to watch you sleep (though I never do, I promise), to surprise you with barbecue, etc etc. I figured out that the trick to expressing these things is to compress them, but the thing is I have to compress them A LOT. Instead of exploding in light, which I would very much like but most assuredly cannot do, I wake you up with toast.

PS I never remembered my dreams until they started being about you.