Dear future girlfriend:

I’ll tell you this now.

I’m a hopeless romantic.

Emphasis on the hopeless.

I live for attention and validation,

Crave the affection of others.

And when you come around,

I’ll be ready for you.

 

I’ll hold your hand and buy you flowers.

Scraping out the bottom of my change to get you nice things.

I’ll hold you if you need to be held

And I’ll cry with you if you need to cry.

If I need to be held, will you hold me?

If I need to cry, will you cry with me?

 

And if we meet before I leave the nest.

You’ll meet my parents,

And I’m so sorry if we have to pretend

That we don’t love each other.

That I’ll say that we’re just friends who are oh so intimate.

My mom says that she “accepts all gay people,”

But she has yet to accept me.

She has yet to accept you.

She hates that I wrote you this poem

because I should keep some things to myself,

But she doesn’t know that I’ve spent

the majority of my life hating who I was, who I loved.

The hurtful things she says will not change how much I love you.

 

And the boys I loved in the past,

They don’t change the way I love you, either.

The one date I ever went on

Was with a boy who misunderstood my advances.

I just wanted to go to a hockey game with him,

He thought I wanted to be his girlfriend.

And we ended up dating. For a week.

 

And during that week,

we didn’t say a single word to each other

Until we mutually broke up over text.

I will talk to you, I won’t leave you alone like he did.

I promise.

 

I’ll say your eyes swim in starlight

No matter their color.

If they’re blue like mine,

Or molten chocolate brown,

Green, grey, any color.

I’m a writer,

So I will write you into poetry,

Your lips, your hair, your hands.

The things you do and the art you make.

I will make you immortal.

Sure, it’s not “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,”

But once this world crumbles into oblivion,

They’ll uncover my writings.

You will be there too.

 

I want to do all the cute couple things with you.

I want you to kick my butt in Mario Kart.

I would love to share clothes with you,

To see you wearing my favorite hoodie,

Or my prettiest dress.

And if we aren’t the same size that’s okay.

We can still share jewelry.

 

I want to send goodnight texts,

And good morning ones.

I want to hear you grumble over my bad jokes.

I want to hear yours.

 

I’ve imagined it, us, talking for hours about nothing at all.

Sometimes we’re on the roof stargazing.

You point up at the pearly full moon.

I’m not looking at it, because I’m looking at you.

 

We can curl up on the couch in my basement

And watch movies for hours.

Your pick of Marvel, Harry Potter, or Star Wars.

If you pick Star Wars, please don’t make me watch the prequels.

 

We could sing along to the songs from our favorite cartoons,

Theorizing and predicting and watching episodes

Like we’re little kids.

But you make me feel like a little kid,

All excited and flurry inside like it will never stop.

 

I’ll listen to the music you like,

Even if I’ve sworn that I’ve hated it in the past.

I’ll learn the names of your favorite band’s members.

I’ll do it to make you happy, talking about them.

 

We can go ice skating,

Because that’s a cute couple thing to do, right?

But I’m kinda scared of skating,

I broke my wrist when I was eight

Catching myself when I fell.

But I’ll hold your hand with one of mine,

And I’ll be fine.

When we go to the movies,

I’ll buy you a popcorn,

Only if you sneak in two boxes of candy from the dollar store.

 

I want to take you to hockey games

I’ll teach you the rules

And the names of all my favorite players.

I’ll hope and pray they’ll put us up

On the Jumbotron

For the Kiss Cam

And I can show the entire world,

Ok, just the arena,

That I’m in love with you.

 

I’m sorry my anxiety interferes

with those sweet situations I imagine.

I’m sorry I’m so goddamned depressed,

I’m sorry that I need to take medication

so my body works like a woman’s.

I’m sorry I wrote you a love letter to be read for public consumption,

But this is me calling out into the void to you so that you might hear it.

I’m also sorry that I apologize too much.

 

And I’ll admit,

Sometimes I dream of us getting married.

I dream of us growing old together.

I dream and I dream and I dream,

I want you to know that it gets sweeter every time.

 

And if we weren’t meant to be,

I’ll let you go as softly as you let me go.

I’ll shake your hand and wish that after it all we can still be friends,

Because you know, after all,

I am just a hopeless romantic.

 

I’ll see you when you come around.

-Alex