When I'm with you,
I'm thrown back into a world
Of randomness and imagination
Much like the world I knew as a child.

We drive through my favorite fast food restaurant and you order the exact same thing I've ordered a million times before yet it's not like anything I've ever tasted.

You've become my childhood best friend. I whisper secrets into your ear. You listen. Hold my hand and share secrets of your own. Mine seem like planets compared to your galaxies.

You shove a coloring book to my face and all I want to do is color within the lines to impress you. But you surprise me and show me how to color outside the lines.

You've thrown me back into a world I thought was long gone. Back to when I thought of only good things. To when Santa was real. To when ice cream was the only medicine. To when a  rainy day meant home movies and no school.

To when all I could think of was waiting for someone like you to come into my life...
And now I'm thrown forward into now. Into the present. To when im with you. Beside you. Loving you. Thanking the stars for making the wait worth it.

The clock strikes once.

I'm asleep but I hear it still.
The first chime goes and it sounds like this

"I"

The clock strikes again

I hold on and listen... I don't know what to expect

"Love"

The last strike of the clock is familiar.

Almost like home...yet I long for it still.

"You"

Oh how the artists of each generation thrive on the long lonely hours of the night

How they lurk each and every corner of quiet and stillness
How they ponder waves of truth and meaning only found in the dark

Oh how they unknowingly move mountains in their sleep

How they build bridges and pathways only the brave walk upon
How they strike up their fists in chime with each strike of the clock

The clock chimes in
Six strikes ring
the light breaks in
The artists are rising

How can losing any part of ourselves bring us down to our knees so quickly and with so much force? As if the laws of gravity hold true not only for the tangible, but for the intangible as well.

We seem to believe that "losing" or "lacking" only means that something is taken away from us. We forget that when a part of ourselves is ripped away, more of those parts grow back stronger and heavier. Just as our muscles are torn and repaired, our souls work the same way.

You may think you're lacking-- but in truth, you're getting stronger.

If you were but an abstraction,
I would still love you.
If you were but a whisper
thrown into the wind,
I would still love you.

If I could give you anything
of importance to me,
I would give you my thoughts.
For what are thoughts but
limitless forms of who we are?

I surrender the unlimited parts of me.

I want to kiss you in the rain.
I want to kiss you under the light of a thousand stars.
I want to go to a party with you and get lost in the crowd.
I want to lie down beside you in the back of a pickup truck and just...be together.
I want to kiss you exactly at midnight on New Years.
I want to wake up beside you with our arms wrapped around each other-- and our hearts beating in rhythm.

All clichés. I want all the clichés. I don't care if they've been done by countess people around the world.

I want all that... and I want it all with you.

I'm going to escape it all for a day
No socialization, no worries
No hint of fear, no hidden glory
Nothing but myself, to whom I'll tell a story

No one to talk to, No thoughts to consume me
No one to tend to and no clowns to amuse me
Just lay there awake with melodies soothing my mind.
Looking deeper at life, now that I have the time

When I'm done drowning and segregate from my box
I'll wait at the door, and wonder if you'll knock
I hope you forgive me without even a reason
Because even a lonely summer could be such a cold season