I carefully waited for my phone to illuminate with your name and the words that I want to hear. I waited, as my body worked itself up a mountain with images of your smile waiting around every corner, and memories of your soft touch guiding me along my uneven path. I waited, as I filled my mind with these visions of you, as I grew closer to the top. I tip-toed up to the peak as I waited. I felt myself wobble. I waited. I waited longer.

I still wait.

After 2 years of waiting and wanting, I feel myself slowly descending into a canyon of what can only be described as complete self doubt, confusion, and rejection. But as I am falling, I hear a familiar tone, accompanied by your name in lights. ”Hey, we should get together, soon.” I feel a small hitch on my right ankle. My leg keeps me hanging in the translucent air, floating around in circles amid the foggy questions of the last year. I think back to previous conversations, ”I'll make it up to you. Just give me sometime. Soon, i promise.” I feel a slight pressure relieved from my right side as a slew of strings and memories creep their way out of the clouds and drag my entire body—feet first—back up to rocky ground. I feel those four letters squeeze me tight, imprinting themselves onto my arms, and seeping through my skin before I can object. My veins are suddenly saturated with a message of belonging again, a feeling of being needed. Being wanted. As these fabrications flow through my bloodstream, throughout my mind and body, they reach their final destination. My heart.

Your safety net saves you from commitment;

Mine saves me from disappointment. From reality.

So what is it about this word that I love so much? Maybe it is the vision of a future with you that it paints in my head. Maybe it is the daydreams that follow every time it appears upon the screen of my phone.

Or maybe, just maybe, it is the flash of hope that tells me that I might get over and move on from those bad years, soon.

Please, just, soon