It started raining on the day you left. It's not stopped raining one day since. I like it, though. You know I love bad weather, and now I drown in it. You know I love you. Certain things won't and will never work. Now, with your name in lights, my life is even less lit. Can you even seen me in the furthest dark from your star? My bed may as well be chrome, my head a mini-ATX, I'm on autopilot. Toward destruction, I run open armed and face first. The wind and drag remind me of our excitement, of living with the fires lit. I'll die in it, and take all our artificial memories with me.

Well, its been two years since the night I sat up late dreaming of other worlds that seemed so far away.

Yet here they are, nearly before me.

Its crazy, looking between that moment and now. I was honest and hopeful, yet all those things I wished for seemed worlds away.

Well, worlds away just turned into 3 months.

I've finished my first real novel. I'm a third through my new one. The inevitability of me being a real author is sharp and bright and awe-inspiring. I've written things that make people think and feel and hopefully have the ability to make a difference.

I'm running across the country with that man I love. Its happening. I am in love. I feel forever in love. I no longer sit and question the maybes; I feel he is for me, as long as he is who he is and breathes on this earth and walks beside me. And I soon get to wake up to him every morning for as long as we're together. Its something else, I tell you.

Wonderland has gotten kinder. I have become stronger, and things are figuring themselves out. I'm figuring myself out. Its new and terrible and great and exciting. The world of Wonderland is before me, and I am no longer afraid.

I wanted these so many things, and I'm fingertips away from them. They're mine. Its jaw-dropping. Its nearly a surprise.

Except it isn't. It logically feels that way, but in my heart it only feels right. Now, I have my writing. I have my novels. I have my love. I have my wonderland. I have my future.

All the things I ever wanted are mine, and its more than I ever thought I would get. My dreaming isn't just dreaming anymore. Everything I dreamed of is real, and you know what?

Its better than I dreamed. Far better.

I want a relationship built on trust
I want to celebrate our accomplishments
I want to listen to you rant about how good or bad your day was
I want to take care of you when your sick
I want to surprise you with breakfast in bed
I want to try weird foods with you
I want to go on spontaneous adventures
I want to have days where we just stay in bed
I want to laugh until I can't breathe with you
I want to fall asleep with you in my arms
I want cheesy dates to the movies
I want to go on long walks on the beach
I want to go shopping and spoil you
I want to share straws in a cup
Because I've never had that.

Tired and worn
Discolored mix of gray whites and blues
Distressed laces that once kept it together
Are Left in thin shambles laying so weakly through each disfigured loop

The stories they have carried me through
Stories of pure joy and happiness
Stories of pure depression and tears
Unfortunately their last story has been completed
For they have tired and can travel no further without falling apart

I feel like I can look at a
Complete stranger and read
If they are truly living or just existing

Then I wonder if I am just
Looking in a mirror because
I honestly can't answer that about myself

There's an old abandoned bridge
between Yosemite and here.
Take the Lathrop exit where-
(or don't, it's your life after all)
-we throttled to jump off it
when our buddy flashed excitement, a boyish daydream, and we decided.

Our clothing
     soon was hanging
         on a long forgotten railroad track

(Sitting naked on a maple board-
            Probably from the Civil War.
Dropping rocks to test the height,
            Water black with no rapport)

         He giggled like a giddy child
     trying not
to give us flak,
(For being such a bunch of scaredy cats)

Moonbeams on our skin, and also iPhone torches, and the headlights of the Jeep.

And did he jump? yes!
From a stand with only his two feet supported by a 2 by 4?? yes!
He flipped behind his head!
A backflip with a midway twist.
(Or maybe I half-remember,
It was just a normal flip)

I swear, man, it was amazing.
Off the wooden railing,
Pale and falling towards the water,
                                                          ­ which,
(by the way)
was as black as the apocalypse.

Splashing ghostly underwater,
Then shimmied up the concrete pillar,
Called out to the crescent moon,
And gave a thirty foot salute,
       plunging towards the blackened river.

Laughing, swimming,
He called up to us, quivering,
(And said),
                "Alright, you're next."

Our eyes met
Like magnets
Drawn in from a distance.
The way the beam from a lighthouse
Draws the attention of sailors.

Your gaze was instantly familiar
Like waking up to the smell of coffee
Or coming home from a storm.
Simultaneously bringing bright flashes
Of welcoming warmth and excitement.

Conflagration rages
through the neuron forest;
in the end were lies,
deceived by honesty.

The first to flee
were all the beasts,
while the humane
remained behind
to burn up in a trace
of sapience.