I. You were thunder and I was lightning. For some reason a part of me always knew this, but never voiced it out. Your arm was around my shoulders and you were warm, radiating heat like the sun. And in some ways, you were my sun. It seemed that somehow I always managed to trip and stumble my way into your orbit, losing count of the number of times I fell into your warmth, into you. When you asked if I was frightened after you huddled close to me I lied and said yes, only to keep you by my side for just a bit longer, just a bit closer. That night we looked into each other's eyes and laughed through our tears, and in that moment I knew as long as I was with you, it was more than enough.
II. My fingers interlocked with yours. It was pitch black and I was terrified, the wind in my face and the moonlight dimly streaming through the trees. We had danced among the leaves and whispered secrets, but you had gone off first; darted in blind excitement towards the crowd in the main square. I screamed for you, an anxious, desperate and impulsive thing, goaded on by the looming shadows and still silence that echoed around the area. If I had blinked I would have missed it, your sudden appearance at my side with my hand in yours. You smiled, and somehow the night didn't seem so dark anymore.
III. It had been a year since, and none of us mentioned that day, the day that left us in ruins. You had smashed my heart against my rib cage the way poets slam poetry, and the tidal waves had washed us over with tears that the ocean couldn't hold. But you came for me, and in that moment I had forgotten; your face a vague image in my memory. Still, you came for me, relentless like the typhoons in august and the storms in december. You pushed and pulled and wormed your way back into my heart, your song a lullaby to my ears and your gaze, a blanket to my fears. I let you in again, I pushed you out again. You tried, You stopped, You tried again. We were quiet about it, but what we left unsaid spoke volumes.
IV. We are here now. It was beginning to fade before this, to become a passing memory. But I should have known better, and as always you knew before me. You had nothing more than a tired smile, but I saw myself in your eyes again, saw us again. The thunder and the lightning, the grass under our feet, the rain in our hair and our laughter that mingled and became one sound. Your warmth and my heart. In that moment I knew you could not and had not forgotten; it was a loud relic and an even louder memory. It was you. It was me. It was us, screaming from the bottom of our lungs into the air and fields like we did years ago, except now it was in our hearts and in our eyes; I love you. I love you. I love you.
(A.H.Z)