That when you laugh, I feel my ribs loosen. That when you are sad, I want to build a fortress around your silence. That I have become a student of your small devastations and your tiny joys.
I will not love you perfectly. I will forget things. I will be late. I will say the wrong words.
Scared that one day, this video will be the only proof that we existed. Scared that the algorithm will bury us, that the pixels will degrade, that your face will become a blur of ones and zeros. un video para mi amor
So here is my promise, recorded in light and shadow:
But I have learned that love is quieter than that. Love is the fact that I remember you hate the feeling of dry socks. Love is me buying strawberries even though I am allergic, just so I can watch you eat them. Love is the absence you leave in a room—the way a chair seems lonelier after you stand up. That when you laugh, I feel my ribs loosen
(I see you. I choose you. I keep you.)
Montage of small, sacred things: a half-eaten apple, a tangled pair of headphones, a pillow with a dent in it. I will not love you perfectly
Darkness. Then a single candle. The flame flickers violently, then steadies.
Do you know what I realized today? That I have memorized the sound of your breathing through a telephone line. That I can close my eyes and reconstruct the exact curve of your shoulder, the way light falls on it at 5:47 PM.
I am making this video because love, when it is real, is not a photograph. It is a roll of film still being developed. It is the half-second between the flash and the image appearing. It is the waiting .
I am also scared.