"do you think there's a right way to love someone?,"

the question is to him, pretentious. everything she'd ever said had been pretentious to him in all fairness. he's always felt the same distaste for her question. his inability to distinguish their sincerity left him anxious ast the sound of her voice. there were two option in the faux-blondes mind.

the first was that they had been honest questions. the whole way through - she must've meant everything she said. or that the whole time she had been teasing him - insincere and sarcastic in hopes to catch him saying something dumb. he likes to believe the latter. everything is easier that way.

either she is plainly honest or honestly a liar. he's more comfortable with the second idea. if everything she'd ever told him has been honest he'd have to think and he hates thinking about her longer than necessary. maybe, in a way - that's also why he's always hated her questions.

he thinks on it anyway. thinks long and hard about what loving someone means and then the wind catches. a gust of storms past as the air grows wet with rain and warmth. summer rain is different than spring. the humidity makes his skin sticky. anticipatory in whats to come - the brush of wind relieves him. his eyes drift towards her. she's stood next to railing of the bridge. her eyes are shut. she's wearing that stupid skirt that makes her thighs stick out so much that he always has to put a coat around her waist. the sienna of her skin glows, like magic. straight black hairs that blow in this gust of wind like it has been called home.

and for a moment - a fleeting, ephemral moment, he catches her smiling. it is not bright, or wide. but subdued like morning dew, refreshing to his vision. her eyes are closed as she feels the wind on her skin and she is smiling so beautifully that everything inside him is crumbling. like a sandcastle. the realization that you have loved him the entire time crashes like a tidal wave at the highest point of noon.

his chest seizes. lungs shaking as the feeling washes over him so wholly. he had denied for so long, rooted the denial so deeply (or at least he had tried) and in the second she is beautiful, he had fallen apart completely. that she had loved him so much that whole time. whatever love is, whatever it feels like, and whatever question she asks about it.

all of it came down to her. unable to stop to thumping of his heart, he scoffs. comes up behind her as the wind pushes her skirt up. he'll have to tell her soon. before this all ends.

but for now, he stands behind her. even on her tiptoes he doesn't reach his shoulder. he pulls his skirt down with a huff, red to the tips of his ears and grateful she won't turn around. too lost in her own word. in that moment he sighs.

"that's a pretentious question,"

when we fall asleep tonight, i wonder what you will see in your dreams.

i know that’s a silly question. i normally never ask anything but those to ask you, do i?

that’s what you always told me anyhow. that the words that tumble carelessly from my lips are silly, that they leave you bemused.

i say we, but it is just i here. i don’t know where you’ve been and where you stay, but i still wonder if you fall asleep and dream endlessly. maybe i miss those tales and i write this letter in order to listen to your stories. even though you’re nowhere near me now - maybe we could meet in your dreams.

it sounds like longing, doesn’t it? it is. when i say i long for you, you cut your ears with sharpened nails and vanished into the night. i expected as much. the moon has told me many times to bite my tongue, but i always fall asleep at sunrise and forget.

when we fall asleep tonight, i would like to meet you in my dreams. and when we see each other, i hope hope you draw your knuckles against my cheek and tell me what i want to hear. the shape of your lips, curled into a dizzy smile as you look into my eyes and into me. in my dreams, i want you to indulge me.

in my dreams, you are alive. it is not like this there. in my dreams, you smile, and laugh, and give me your harsh words when you are angry. and we drown in yellow-gold light and brewed fruit and kisses that knock the air out of eachothers lungs. there are no hospital rooms with fluroscent bulbs, and no heart-monitors that cut the silence rigidly

i’ll pretend again that today, you are awake and we fall asleep together. you are not in a hospital bed. your gown is made of silk and ribbon, not surgical linen. the food we eat is wine and bread, not liquid through tubes.

today i felt your hand move when i held it. your eyelids twitch and blink, rapidly. and i get to believe that i will see you in techinicolor instead of mutedly in my sleep, at your side for another night.

i wonder if she knows she is magic to me

the gentle clasp of her hands around mine

my fingers are birds to cage, entrapping me

she leaves me amused, grinning wickedly like a sunbeam

i wonder if they know i cherish them.

the way they cut their hair and dye it too

an artist shoud look like the art they make

they are worthy to be pinned across musuem walls

she keeps me from feeling hollow

when winter comes and the snow gives me cold feet

it is her smile and silly tendencies that push me through

she must know the affects she has on me

if not for her then who?

they are free to fly

wings that have been clipped so long,

it is only love that can straighten them

and i know that they should be free,

that i should not anchor them here

she is indeed, free to fly wherever she desires

if, by chance, her wings get singed

like icarus chasing the light

then i will let her go, with a dazed expression

and burrow her in my heart until her return.

i hope she knows that i adore her

like i always said i did.