i love you

i love you. thinking on it, i can't recall having these three words anywhere, on any piece of paper or material i have in my possession.

i’ll tell you, I have quite the collection. i have one slick white cardboard filing box filled with generally small mementos; marbles, stones, carved wooden items, even a porcelain tile with a lone wolf on it. i also have a large black, industrial strength, stackable tub with at least 50lbs of paper keepsakes inside. old journals, loose leaf scribblings, photos, and bound pages for events that i’ve visited. neither one holds, tenderly or otherwise, the weight of that ink spent on those 8 letters.

the closest i come to those three words together is with my scribblings, and with my thoughts on the sparks of interest i had in people back when.

it’s hard for me to fathom that for all the thoughts i’ve had around those three words, that they aren’t somewhere. lot of “I”’s, lot of “you”’s, heck, maybe even a few “love”’s, but not all in the same place, and certainly never said.

this comes to mind, you see, because today I thought on things i’ll never be able to say. that’s what I typed in, “Things I’ll never be able to say.” and that is the first victim of my silence, i love you.

To my parents, on those days when I long to hear their voice, but they’re not here.

To my sisters and brother, because we have this thing, and we know.

To friends I’ve passed by on this long road of life and don’t see any more.

To dear friends near at hand, because it’s understood, but never spoken.

To the girl next door, because there was a moment and now it’s gone.

I have loved a lot of people. I hope they’ve known it.

I hope I have the chance to say it. I hope I have the chance to write it down.