one `

dare i call you my platonic soul mate?

you're the peanut butter to my jelly, i guess. only not quite, because that would imply that we were opposites. to be fair, that is what we are in so many ways. if anyone met us separately they would probably never guess we were friends. but inwardly we gel together and most of all, we understand. i'm water, you're glue. we're the dynamic duo, the ones that come in a set. but we aren't the same.

too many people make that mistake. i am torn between wanting to mock them or to correct them. and it is because of these differences that i wonder sometimes if i am being too overbearing. these thoughts do not linger for long however. if i was, you would not embrace my presence like you do, would you, or at least it is what i hope to think. sometimes i cannot help but worry, but that is just my nature.

i care either too much or too little at a given time, and for you it is the former.

confidence isn't your strong suit. you tell me you aren't pretty. though you are gorgeous, i want to respond. when you smile it looks like sunshine and when you laugh it's like a summer wind has enveloped me in an embrace. this isn't something you can see in the mirror, but your happiness is contagious. when we are together i find myself grinning so much that my cheeks start to ache, and that my lips are cracked from smiling too widely. but i can't help it. it's the effect that you have on me. the feeling that someone understands me on a level that nobody can hope to.

sometimes i worry for you, but most of the time i am certain that you will be okay. you are one of the toughest, strongest, most amazing people that i know. while i am older i know you bear burdens much heavier than mine, but you do so beautifully with such grace. so my protective instinct kicks in, like that of an older sister. you don't have to tell me that nobody has ever really looked out for you, and i don't want to assume. though may you allow me to come to that deduction? and most of all, will you give me permission--

if nobody has looked out for you before, please let me be the first.

i know i'm not one to talk. i'm not someone who remembers to look before she leaps. i'm too brash, too crude, and sarcastic remarks fall faster from my lips than kind words. it is in those ways where we are one and the same. but i have experience that you do not, just as you have your own, as well as a tenacity that i have always admired. all i have to protect you with are words, but words can do so much.

there are times when i i talk more than i can deliver. but i truly mean it when i say that one day we'll be together again, for the long term. we'll be in the same city and lead lives that finally intertwine with one another's, the way i only thought friendships happened in fiction.

hopefully by then, our conversations will end with 'goodnight' instead of 'goodbye'.