u/ImaginaryPassage8659

How can I not? How much I loved you. How much you loved me (you showed it... Even when I didn't see it clearly then)

How instant and beautiful and deep it all was.

Who would we have become together? Who would we have been if we'd had the mixed blessing of being together young, with most of our 20s and all of our 30s stretched out in front of us?

Who did I become because we weren't? Who did you become because we weren't? How did carrying this so long, in confusion and grief and perceived rejection shape us?

I still love you anyway. Enough to let you be happy without me.

Obvious but true.

The first time I saw you was like nothing else. "hey it's YOU! Oh my god it's you". And the thrill and strange familiarity. Not something I ever believed in before you. But something I have to believe in now. So many years later.

I couldn't understand then... I was only 20. Why was I suddenly like this? Why was I more in love with you than anyone and so quickly? Why was I suddenly a pervert? I wanted you. I always will I think. In spite of our mistakes, in spite of my then youthful insecurity. Never doubt who you are to me. Or who you were to me then.

I looked only at you in rooms full of people. Given the chance, I would have been just yours, forever. I didn't know that the chance was given until far too late and for that I am sorry. I couldn't know what I didn't know. I couldn't bridge the gap between us I was too scared of you rejecting me. And I didn't know you tried until youth was far behind us both.

I still look for you in crowds without thinking. Women who walk like you make my heart tighten. The right colour of hair and a glimpse of a wrist tattoo make it skip a beat. But you wouldn't be here. I live far from you.

I still only ever wanted you. I had other relationships only with women or AFAB humans who wouldn't take no. Because the answer was always no. I didn't want to. What should have become attraction "she's cute!" never went anywhere. So neither did I. Not by choice.

Sex? With a man I could never. The idea disgusts me. The smell of men repulsed me. With a woman I could... But I still only want you.

I've had very few lovers, because healthy normal humans take no. It's not a pretty story. Especially the first. I didn't want her. I wanted you... And she was nothing like you at all.

With the second, I was pushed all the way into a marriage... For immigration reasons for my ex, to please my family who desperately wanted me in a relationship (if not with a man... At least with somebody). And I knew marrying them I wasn't in love with them even if I could love as a verb. Could attach. Could care. Could cave to their manipulations and sobbing at me to get their way until I couldn't anymore.

You do not share my limitations. The grey-asexuality that confused even me for years. Am I really lesbian like you are? Yes and no. That depends on your definition. How many women do I have to be sexually attracted to to qualify as lesbian to you?

At least ten? No.

At least five? No

At least one? Then maybe you'd decide I count.

No one else is you.