Lately, I’ve come to realize that everyone falls. I’ve noticed that you and I seem to fall differently. Maybe you don’t think so, but I do. I tend to fall on my back. Bones pop out of place, and I bite my tongue. Somehow you know when I will and you’re always there. I’ve never said I’m thankful, but I am.

If you fall at all, you fall gracefully. You say you do fall, that you have character flaws and make mistakes. I may be biased, but I think you’re lovely the way you are.

My life is exactly like a puzzle.

I always seem to lose pieces. I’m not sure how, but I do. That’s how I am. If I put them in the box, they fall out; if I don’t put them in the box, I lose them. I forget they exist until I try to put everything back together. There are so many holes, too many damn holes, and I have no way to fill them.

The pieces are my life. They are my friends, parts of my personality, my memories, my family, and my future. Sometimes it’s not that I lose them; some leave on their own. I find some, sometimes, when I’m lucky, and others come back. Some I just lose forever. You are the only piece that never goes missing.

If you ask me to repeat the following, I will deny it ever happened. I will deny I wrote this, and I will say you are a liar.

You are the pillow I hold onto at night.

I will not go so far as to say you are the air I breathe. (The air I breathe is tasteless. You’d taste like fruit, I think. Probably blueberries. If not, then chocolate.)

My pillow used to be white, but it’s got black smears on it. I never seem to get all of my eyeliner off before I go to bed, and when I cry, it runs. I hope I haven’t smeared you. I’d hate to think that I’ve smeared the only thing I have left to hold on to.

You are my voice.

You’re the courage it takes for me to stand up and speak when I’d rather sit down. You are the trembling of my legs, the wall I lean back onto steady myself. You are the steadiness of my voice and the shakiness that no one ever seems to notice. You are the confidence I draw on when I need it. You are the strength I never realized I had.

You are the words that I speak. You are the things I can’t figure out how to phrase and the words I want to say but don’t know how. You are the words I do say; the I love yous and the jumbled phrases that make no sense. You’re the quiet, barely spoken words, not the shouted ones. The quiet words always seem to mean the most.

In science experiments, there are three parts: independent variable, dependent variable, and constant. My independent variable is me: my thoughts, my personality, my words, my moods. My dependent variable is my life: my friends, my happiness, my tears, my writing, my laughter. I change myself when I want to change my life.

And in the confusion that follows, there is only one thing that’s the same. I call it my constant. I only have one, but I would never change it, not even for the world – and you know I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it. My only constant is you.

I’ve decided that you’re my sunset.

If you want to be picky, you’re the Sunday night sunsets. (If you want to be terribly picky, you’re 7:31 p.m. on Sunday nights and everything that follows.)

You are the creaks in my floorboard and the rustle of leaves. You are my nervousness, my fears. You are my flinches, widened eyes, and my quickened breath.

But far more importantly, you are the feeling in the pit of my stomach that says it’ll be all right. You are my reassurance, and you are my relaxation. You are the exhalation of breath and the slowing of my heartbeat. You are the ending of a day, but you’re the beginning to my week.

If you were a fish and I were a human, I would grow gills just so I could see you.