i think i've been in love with you for some time now. it occurred to me today when i was eating my big plate of crushed ice alone in the little local eatery, tugged away in the old quarters of the city. i felt quite obscure and slightly removed from the general surroundings. i suppose "misplaced" might be an appropriate word. i focused on my plate full of tapioca balls and green beans and yellow chewy cubes that have no name in english, and then it hit me that i might be in love with you.

i feel a bit happy about that, kind of like discovering a cozy neighborhood cafe. you know, something that's always been there but you finally take notice of, and it has your name written all over it and you tell yourself that you're going to come here every morning instead of starbucks. pleasant surprise, you might say. except, i suppose, in my case daily visits are out of the question, since i'm here. and you're not.

it's almost like a trite plot. i fall into it so fast i can't see clear, but i fall out of it equally fast. i wipe away the dusts on my sleeves, tuck my hair back behind my ears, march forward with head held high, my invisible shield even thicker, made of pride. i've gone from you a long way now. you've become a small dot. smaller than this period. <--this one. <--or this one. you get the point.

except for some bizarre reason you as a small dot have accumulated silently, like pixels on a computer screen, into various shapes of shadows. scarier yet is that as shadows you're following me places as i roam the world. i see you in restaurant menus, in music stores, on hiking trails. when i listen to a song and a melody makes my heart contract a bit tighter i think of you. when i taste the cinnamon in my coffee, and when the foam leaves a milky white ring around my lips i think of you. when there's a breeze in the air and i walk around in my gold flip flops and aviator shades i think of you.

and then today as i ate my afternoon snack in the heat it dawned upon me that this might mean i love you. do you think so? how i hope you don't. i just made a mental note that you may never know this. my happy, if not slightly scary, discovery has comforted me somewhat. i try to keep this treasured knowledge close to me as i walk farther away from you, and so your shadow is sewn to the silver satin of my shoe.