I wrote “I love you" on your driveway,
with a big chunky piece of pink chalk, I exposed my feelings for you
And everyone else to see...
Or at least anyone who paid close enough attention to the ground,
but I know you'll never see it.
You make it a policy to never look down.
You’re always reaching for the sky.
Face up, shoulders back, back straight,
you are unafraid, unlike me.

You’re an open mind.
Me being gay was something that never really crossed your mind,
not out of a "Lets avoid the issue" kind-of-way
but because your head was always in the clouds.
You just had better s*** to worry about like:
The Beatles, avoiding meat, your younger sisters,
the Beatles, homework, paying your rent, the Beatles,
Shade, sleep, the Beatles.
Yeah.

So the fact that I like girls was as common to you as the fact
That I like cherry ice cream.
which means I don’t think you thought about it very often.
and you never put yourself in the category of "girls I might like"
So every time you tried to guess and you never quite got it right
the more I fell in love with you and
the more there were days when I wished I born a guy.
Because being in love with someone isn't easy,
being gay just makes it harder.

I don’t want to disgust you,
don’t want your eyes to fill with the same inhuman look
I once saw on my grandmother’s face the first time we saw a gay couple at the park,
two women drowning in the love of each other’s warmth.
I didn't understand what was wrong back then,
I still kinda don’t today.

No, I just want you to love me,
just like the necklaces I see you hang on nails in your bedroom
just to make it all that much easier to admire them all at once.
I just want to be able to hold you,
No, maybe not in the way you thought Jack held Rose in the movie, Titanic,
"So romantically",
but I want to be next to you,
our bodies huddled against each other like the last two eggs in the carton
awaiting the frying pan.
I want to be able to hold you on rainy days...
days when I feel like taking a cheap piece of pink chalk that I stole from the dollar store
to the dusty slab of concrete in front of your apartment window,

when every raindrop reminds me of you.
Drip,
your low voice that you hate and I love.
Drip,
your hair that smells like the sun.
Drip,
your awkward toes.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Until the rain is falling too fast and I’m
no longer here but in the moments of you, me, we...US.

I wanted us to be something together other than friends
and find comfort in the "us" that no one person could ever truly love alone.
But I know "us" will never happen
Because "friends for life" is always better than not friends at all.

So this morning,
in those three simple words
repeated over and over on your driveway,
I wrote
Every need,
Every frustration,
Every feeling of disgust
For the rain to wash away.
And I know you'll never see it...
Because all that’s left is a puddle on your driveway
and the pink dust of chalk on my fingertips.