there are a million stars and half a million gas stations between you and me but that doesn’t equal distance. day breaks, day shatters into evanescent pieces that float on the edge of my conscious mind, but you are the constant. your eyes the color of ground hazelnuts have always been my constant.

it doesn’t matter that we are separate beings because, here, in the light of a setting sun and a milky twilight, we are one. we are melted together like hershey kisses in a bowl on a summer evening and worry is not a word and slowly, you become my kryptonite.

missed phone calls, missed deadlines, missed laughs. i used to count your sneezes in the biting chill of early february and wrap your arms around my waist so i could feel like something was keeping my balloon from flying into the void where lost balloons go. i blame myself for letting you hold on until i finally took flight, spreading my wings out behind me like an angel's and kicking the invisible dust into your face.

now there are two million stars and a million gas stations between us because i am trying to forget that you ever broke the carefully crafted walls that contained all of my closeted skeletons.

i’m starting to remember why i never liked hazelnuts.