He said, "Son, you're taking the high road."
I said it sure felt like the low.
But I have a habit of self-obsessing.
In between sessions of self-critical second-guessing.
Sometimes it's just more how you feel, less of what you know.

Somehow, along the way I lost who I was.
Found more about who I really am.
I found home in a saccharine smile.
The first who feels worth all the while.
Sometimes it really as simple as just because.

You are like the perfect song coming on at the perfect time.
You are like the warmth in the last rays of a vivid sunset.
You are like petrichor and the electricity before the storm.
You are like the sweetest half-remembered dream after a nap.
You are like the feeling from a fire in the coldest winter night.
You are like the ocean with secrets and unexplored depths.

I think we become crazy for the ones we love.
I fell for you and never considered getting out.
You feel inevitable and as familiar as a holiday.
You mean things that I could never hope to convey.
Even if its nuclear, I'm staying for the fallout.
Sometimes a soul really does meet a mate.

I can feel it already,
a steady stream of dopamine.
It's flowing right beneath your skin.
I can tell there will be no wading in here.
I don't know yet if this is harmony
or the calm quiet before the hurricane.
Or if I care one way or another.
Or which one of us is the storm.
I worry because I worry a lot more,
Smile a lot less.
These days I manufacture my happiness.
You do strange things to survive your demons.
Was easier to develop Stockholm, then slay them.
I'm still the same down on his luck kid.
Chasing away ghosts in the streets.
I'm on a cyclical self-sabotage trip.
It's not until you might get what you want,
that you wonder if you deserve it at all.
But it doesn't matter,
I'm already drunk on you.
It never feels the same twice.
But it's the best drug I know.
And truthfully,
You seem worth the overdose.

Nothing makes you dissect yourself more completely
than discovering you want someone to like you.
A thousand internal worries rattle around my head all night.
Trying to find all my flaws before you do.
Life has had an easy time of keeping me low.
so it's hard to tell where my good luck ends and you begin.
Your eyes say safety, but your lips taste like danger.
I guess this is what they call a calculated risk.
I've grown old making the best of bad situations.
You make me feel like I'm catching my breath.
For now, I'm stuck between enjoying this moment
and the one where I eventually drive it all away.
More afraid that what you'll say is jump instead. 
I won't be able to stop myself from leaping.
You make me want to tear a hole through every sunset.
Scream at the sky and dance in the rain.
Believe again, in all the happy endings.
Even if it all burns down, in the end,
we will just laugh madly and carry on.
But I've known this since I heard you laugh,
and again, and again, every time you say my name.
We'll fall together, and maybe we'll fall to pieces.
I'll be your parachute, and you be my safe place.
We can sort it all out later or never at all.
So just say so, we'll swing recklessly through every night.
High on each other and completely consumed.
Because you've crashed into me and lately,
I'm not sure I care if we ever untangle.

The phrase fall in love can be misleading.
Sometimes it's less of a graceful, gentle swell
a sort of feeling that slowly seeps into your soul,
but more like a smack in the face or a missing step.
You know that feeling you get where foot finds air?
But infused with a giddy naivety which for a second makes you feel ageless.
One minute everything's normal, business as usual
the next, it's like you were never really alive at all.
You say their name, and it's a name like others,
but there's a taste when you say it.
Something's different, something's shifted.
I remember once when I was very young.
A teacher wanted me to read the board.
I couldn't I told her, it was too far.
I was in the front row.
When they slipped the lenses over my eyes,
the world exploded.
Colors and hues, things never noticed.
Falling for someone can be like that.
A sweet collision of realities.
An inexplicable deep attraction.
The terror of a hundred new possibilities.
The feeling like you are approaching a mental cliff.
Knowing full well you're jumping regardless.
Sometimes you fall in love,
sometimes you just find yourself there.

I kiss now and it's never anything.
Sure the motions are made and mostly done well.
But what I find is nothing there.
Unremarkable and unnoticeable
like bumping into someone on the street.
Just something that happens.
Certainly not the fire I felt living behind your smile.
Then again we never really kissed with just our lips.
People tell me this gets better.
You forget what you felt when your eyes met.
You forget how for a little while reality was good.  
You forget a whole life, a whole world.
You just move on.
That's what they say.
But how can that be true at all
if I can still see your face in the sunset?
I can still taste you in summer.
I hear you in every single song.
Can't decide if I was broken first or after.
Life was just better sleeping next to you.
Your the only thing I feel and it burns.
Some days I think I might walk straight into that fire.
But they say that you should never give up.
They say there is always hope.
Things will work out and I will see.
What are the chances of being wrong twice, right?

There is something you will come to realise.
Somewhere between regularly scheduled doctor checkups.
Between first credit cards and first credit card debt.
Somewhere around the second or maybe third serious ex.
Some time after the pipe and several dreams.
Long after all those half-cocked convictions
Declaring who and what and how exactly you will be.
A tad older and only slightly wiser.
Always late to funerals and early at parties.
You are a recovering introvert and you'll relapse, often.
You will always try to be ten degrees from the center of attention.
In fact, your want to be needed often supersedes your senses.
You love often, recklessly, but also selflessly.
Do nearly anything for a smile.
You will sometimes be too quick to anger.
Yet someone's tears will always make you soften.
At times, hurt others with a carelessly uttered half thought.
Balanced well by your excessive apologetic nature
and your undying compulsion to be liked.
You will learn the weight of giving your word
and the cost of failing to keep it too.
You will meet friends that feel like family.
And have times when family feels foreign.
But soon understand either is exactly worth
However much you are willing to invest.
Know that you will still have demons hiding around town.
In the end, we must slay our own monsters.
Be our own heroes.
Because ourselves are the only true thing.
We might be this for eternity
or maybe just this sliver.
All the more reason to try.
People improve in shades and moments.
It's a world of entropy and decay.
It's also a world of birth and hope.
A struggle sure, but one towards improvement.
Always try to be a better self than you are.
Because you are all you have.
Take care. It will be ok.