2nd Night

He grabbed my hand and pulled me down the bright, cobble-stoned street. He chattered excitedly, and I drank him in as my heart fluttered and pulled at the delicate cage of by chest.

He talked about things past and present. He talked about the rising cost of living, the new tram that all the locals agreed was terrible and how much the bars had changed since the last time he had crossed these ancient cobbled streets. I listened only as he chattered on, nodding my head and wondering how this Apollo had flitted upon my tiny and hapless existed. My mind twisted as it struggled to understand how this handsome man had found my tiny shadow sufficient to travel beside his own.

The bells overhead rang, and everywhere around floated the shapes of the city, both young and old. None held faces for me, as I followed along, enraptured by his beauty and careless grace. There was an elegance to him, and also a raging storm of rebellion - a curse upon society. He was a man that knew who he was, knowing too just exactly what the world around him was.

We walked hand in hand through streets older than the nation I had hailed from. The smell of street and ocean met and mingled, and split the mind in this city of sweeping limestone and crumbling asphalt. He was in me and he was on my and nowhere in between. As we shifted amongst the rising lights and growing crowds, my spirit hummed in contentment and peace. This was life. This is what living was.

He pressed his lips to mine under the soft yellow lights of the high street, and in that moment finality met existence.