It is as close to obsession as a relatively sane mind gets. I decided to catalogue my emotions on this as a kind of thought exercise and as a means of keeping myself in check. To realize in lucidity how far down the rabbit hole I can go. All of the emotions are real, the thoughts real. It has been edited to remove names and specifics. Note This was written over a period of two plus months. Entries are chronological but are not necessarily daily. Some days there were multiple entries, some none.

Entry 1: Am I not allowed to love you, not allowed to care,
Reckless heart, heedless the cost cast forward

Entry 2: I’m in real trouble here. I don’t know how to not want to touch you. Just the brush of hand on hand

Entry 3:When I first heard your voice, it was as if the whole world was out of alignment as if my sight was blurry, and in that moment had suddenly clicked into place. The world is only clear with you in it. So I want to be in your life and I’ll accept any way that you allow that.

Entry 4: At the concert with you, I kept looking at you. I couldn’t stop, you’d smile and it was wild. Just this heart stopping grin and dark deep eyes.
Wild, strong, unexpected, beautiful. Truly a winter storm.

Entry 5: My heart aches.

Entry 6: I can’t sleep, forget to breathe. Afraid to hug you, because I’d never want to let you go.

Entry 7: You like it when people are free, free to do what they want. What I want is to hold you. I want to be where you feel safe.

Entry 8: Your voice sends shivers down my heart

Entry 9: But now you tell me you are leaving, and I want only to say don’t go. But I can’t say that. Can’t be the person keeping you from your dreams. Won’t betray you but in doing so it feels like I betray myself. Yes, with you, I’d love to travel, love to see the world with you. But I won’t be the albatross, keeping you from your dreams.
I’ll support you, be there for you but I feel like a turbine spinning barely within limits, slowing but waiting for the stumble, the fall.

Entry 10: Your flaws and cracks in facade begin to show. Still, hasn’t stopped how I feel about you.

Entry 11: Bones heal, bruises fade, cuts mend. Emotional scars take the longest to fade. I can’t understand how he could do that to you. Love is a reason to stay, not a reason to go. He is a worthless piece of shit, the universe needs to teach him a lesson. If I knew who he was I’d mark his soul to be taken then bargain it to one of the hells.

Entry 12: You are the last thought before I sleep, I hope that you will sleep well, I send out energy that you may be protected.

Entry 13: You are the first thought when I wake, I think that I want to tell you good morning, to make sure you are OK.

Entry 14: I had a dream that felt like it was with you. You were texting me and the messages were short almost frantic and my phone forced me to play some weird word game to allow me to respond. It was incredibly frustrating because it was so clear you were hurting and I couldn’t reach out to stop your free fall. I would have done anything to send you the message that you are loved, anything to stop the spiral. I did not like feeling helpless in the face of your need to connect.

Entry 15: The more I learn about you, the deeper I fall.

Entry 16: I rounded the corner to see you coming up the hall and lost my balance, your smile consuming my whole mind for a moment.

Entry 17: Its moment by moment, my desire to tell you things I shouldn’t. I need to remind myself that it is not what you want. That I’m not what you want. But I cannot stop this. My reason can only keep me in check. It cannot tell me to stop. For every time I tell me myself to walk is another moment that feels like this is worth the effort.

Entry 18: I desperately hope that the scales will fall away.

Entry 19: I know that all of this seems like obsession. But I am capable of restraint. I would never by my action or through conscious inaction harm you. I may harm you unintentionally. If so, tell me that I may address the situation.

Entry 20: You told me your safe place.

Entry 21: I shared my safe place with you, something I have never done.

Entry 22: I just have the line from sleepy hollow running through my head
You must be a witch, ma petite tempête hivernale.
Because you have bewitched me.

Entry 23: How often can I restrain myself from saying how beautiful you are, from telling you the depths of my feelings. My heart skips when you smile. When you are sad I want to hold you and try to keep the demons at bay. If you were to love me, I would be the blade at your side. Blood would flow at your whim. I would burn the world at your command. A command I would hope you never give, but sad eyed, I would fulfill it.

Entry 24: How can the world have lurched and shifted and have it only have been me to have felt it? I don’t know, but I will be by your side as long as you will have me. Or until my heart bursts, seams spilling out, and I share all of this, this thing you said you don’t want. I wonder if you think a relationship is shackles? If done well, it is wings. I would never hold you back, but I would hold you. Give you a boost if you needed it. I can only be who I am. Hopefully, that is enough. But if not, I will be sad. I’ve been sad before, I won’t die from it. I won’t stop loving you, the intensity may fade but I have never stopped loving anyone that I have ever loved. Sometimes, things don’t work out. I know this.

Entry 25: The only way to combat the ache of my heart is to not talk to you, to ignore you. But my desire is you. All you. You laugh with another and I am jealous, not of them, but that you are not with me. I feel unmoored, and adrift. Always, love has been my compass but with you so near, the needle just spins in place. I fear that when you leave, I will truly be broken.

Entry 26: I feel very protective of you. Though I know you are a woman grown, I can’t help but desire to protect you. I think because I don’t like seeing you in pain, real pain. And I know that there is little I can do, even less at this arms length you hold me to. But it is as painful to see and my desire to aid you is from love not from a belief you can’t take care of yourself. We all need help

Entry 27: It’s a slippery slope between love and obsession, made easier to fall by the simple fact of distance.

Entry 28: I called in sick today. The only reason it was any kind of debate was because you are going to be there and I don’t want to miss a day with you in it.

Entry 29: You smiled at something I said, head upturned from your chair and it was as if the world caught fire.

Entry 30: I texted something obsessive and insecure and stupid. You stopped texting me. I tried to explain but I think I failed.

Entry 31: So I’m going to try to stop, but it is very hard. My heart is literally aching. I want nothing more than to check in with you. But you are my drug. And any tiny hit makes it infinitely harder. But you also make it all infinitely better too.

Entry 32: It’s afternoon and now all I can think of is your soft lips and my desire for them

Entry 33: I’m trying hard to maintain some semblance of potential whatever with you but now I’m worried that I’m just fooling myself that you will ever want me at other than arms length. Perhaps this is insecurity but I don’t get how, physically, I could be attractive to you. Mentally, sure. I pretty much hit all of those buttons. But you are so attractive, you could have anyone you crooked your fingers at.

Entry 34: I’m worried about you. I wish I could do something. I wish I could be there for you. I wish you would let me, but that feels selfish. I wish we were in a place where my being there did not feel as if it were an intrusion.

Entry 35: I can be your safe harbour. If you will allow.

Entry 36: Every minute that you are in trouble, with no information of what is happening, is Agony.

Entry 37: Silence and pain

Entry 38: We texted, and I hope, me being here helps.

Entry 39: I want nothing but to curl up, in a cold room, with you by me. The heat of each other’s hearts bringing comfort.

Entry 40: I feel drained today. Empty. I know if I see you or hear from you it will be gas on a fire. But absent that I almost can’t build up enough will to care. Tonight is the Aiden concert. If I don’t hear from you then I may not go.

Entry 41: I wonder now, in my empty, if you will ever love me. I will be by your side and I fear you will see me as just a friend. I told you from the beginning, I wanted more but perhaps that will be ignored in favor of more palpable, more convenient friendship. But I’ll give you a hint. If any of my friends wanted, with the consent of their significant others, to escalate the relationship, I would take the chance. Love must be given every opportunity else it may die ere it’s full bloom.

Entry 42: Another day and all hope of your presence burns and swirls away like ashes.

Entry 43: How do I say, I miss you and want you when to do so feels so selfish in light of what you are dealing with. And then again how can I not, but thirdly, I don’t even know if that is something you would be open to. I don’t want to push forward too fast but it hurts not to be holding you.

Entry 44: I want the freedom to tell you I love you. I don’t expect you to love me. I just wish I could say, I love you. You are precious to me. Of course that can’t be enough can it. I want to hold your hand, want to hold you, want to look into your eyes, want to kiss you. Its not about sex with me, it is about intimacy. I want to sleep by your side. Want, who am I kidding, want your heart, want your love. I want to be your partner in this life. I want you to want these things with me. But I’ll accept what comes. You In my life is infinitely better than you not in it.

Entry 45: Sometimes it hits me like a ton of bricks, in every consideration I make. Do I want next Wednesday off, normally I would just say yes. But I considered this time, do I? If you are here, would I not be happier to be at work. With you here I’d feel better. It’s only been a week.

Entry 46: Whenever, I think of something to share or say to you, I say almost casually, almost automatically, I love you. The one thing that I must not say, the one thing most likely to make you run, and it’s the one thing that nearly slips out in every exchange.

Entry 47: (There was an entry here but it would need to be so thoroughly redacted that it’s simpler just to note that there was an entry)

Entry 48: I saw your mom’s posted a picture of you three. My breath caught on seeing you. It hasn’t been that long but gods you are beautiful.

Entry 49: I have never longed for oblivion, for the destruction of my conscious mind, so much as now. In the looming shadow of your rejection.

I stopped writing in this at this point. It became as self destructive as it originally felt necessary. My feelings have not changed but I have woken from the destructive elements of those feelings.
I post this now because it is the thing that makes me afraid. Afraid of its terrible accuracy, afraid the subject of this obsession will cut ties. I admit this level can be frightening. Fear… I always say that desire is the best reason to do something… But fear, for honesty, for art is just as good.