It is 10:50 PM and the house is quiet and there is nothing but the tap of my keyboard as I write this. 10:51. Some meager sixteen hours after this I'll be standing next to you.

I think that that shocks me. Not the bad shock but the good electric thrill and whirl. That good shock like the good smell of old carpets and bad whiskey and that general clean that surrounds me. When you asked me if I thought I was merely infatuated with the idea of an online romance; that I was so cynical, I had given up on people who didn't depend on asterisk emotions and moved in 3D. And I said no, and I mean that. I don't think I ever wanted to fall in love, online at least. That would take away everything to be angry about. I could screw up my life, day by day, throwing it away in favor of wallowing in pain and angst and I would always have something to be angry at: the fact that no one would be love with me provided me with that same old inspiration for writing material. I wrote poems and scribbled short stories about the moment I would meet the man I loved; and how delicately he would hold my hands and how softly he would whisper into my ears that he hated me, and how gently he would snap my heart in two. But this was never anything cliche--there are no, "You've got mail" messages on my part, no interesting screen names or overly deep conversations about the world around us. No compulsive motions.

To be honest, I never imagined falling in love with someone like you. Some degree of foreboding inside of me has always imagined me with the wrong kind of guy: the ones in leather jackets with mussed hair and a heavy drinking problem, whose labors of love would leave me with bruised arms and black eyes. I don't think I ever imagined love as happiness, but rather, as a necessary sacrifice. Life was a sacrifice and I was supposed to slit my own throat at the altar. And it just so happened, that as I was falling from the heights, about to crash and burn and fall a little more, you caught me, and you've pulled me up. I have spent so many nights wrapped in a blanket, feet propped on my scanner, the clock on my right reading numbers with "AM" stuck after them in neon red, smiling so hard and never understanding why this reaction was so instantaneous. All you had to do was appear and I would smile, and it felt so good to smile.

And that has gone on from last June to this June. About one year of late conversations and early dawn epiphanies. Consoled over cold coffee, I have typed out confessions, utterances of love, of sadness, of happiness. There is nothing that would separate us.

But I am nervous. Sick, giddy, excited. To hold your hand and whisper secrets, and walk underneath a real sun instead of the artificial glow of the computer monitor. Not have to cradle a phone to hear your voice, and have flesh appear from text. The transition to this material world is so unreal. To know that you know me well enough to stand there and guess my thoughts. To be breathing the same air, and there doesn't have to be a computer generated sound to announce your arrival or departure. I'll know. And I'll run to you, and I'll wave goodbye, but I don't think I'll ever let go.

Love,