it’s wet concrete in the summer, a freshly laid foundation, exploring at sunset with you both, carving our names into the heart of the house so that we remained linked forever.

it’s tears in the basement of a safe house, a tornado raging outside, an explosion of wind and torrents of rain no match for the restoration of love emitted from a once flickering soul.

it’s lying on your bed, our bodies pressed together but not facing, on that squishy mattress topper that never stayed close to the wall, whether we fucked, sat, or didn’t move.

it’s poetry written with no windows, a mutual reading and messages sent back and forth, a reciprocal emptying and filling of the hearts that you and I have come to call vulnerability.

it’s holding you amidst the chaos closest to me, my hand wrapped around your skull, your head pressed to my chest, unknown truths flowing into one another as we danced in silence.

it’s that little pendant you all made me, the multicolored beads with their significance and the string i broke immediately. but a love like that can’t be contained even when its pieces are lost.

it’s your feet racing into my room, your arms thrown onto my sobbing figure atop a rickety bunk bed, my sobs warning of death and your condolences returning me to a life that was mine.

it’s that old leather chair that we’d lie together on, because if sleeping is a signal of vulnerability, then i know now that only true love would make your arms and your chest feel like home.

it’s heavy breathing atop a fortified, artificial rock, where laughter soared and anthems roared while we watched the sun pop below a horizon we’d only just learned to appreciate.

it’s whoops down canyons and between the red rock, fresh footprints in undiscovered territory and the fear of being lost forever probing at and then screaming for us to be smarter. 

it’s the wreckage of a night un-remembered sandwiched below yellow lights and above stained floors, holding your power in my arms, your every movement frightening me to my core.

it’s the dirt and summer carnage on a white t-shirt flying through the air, containing a little boy who loved nothing more than being free.

it’s a pact, signed in blood, by a naive group of friends who had yet to understand that they were both so right and so wrong about the world.

it’s that soliloquy i prepared for you, the gas station receipt, the quiet, unspoken spark that pushed me to ask you to the dance.

it’s the hours of star wars and song and intimate questions that led us nowhere, but led each of us  everywhere every time.

it’s the yellow wheat fields that i somehow appreciated through the pain, and the photo’s you’d take of me experiencing serenity for once in a lifetime.

it’s the pillars of water raging down a mountain side, pulling me closer to it and pulling us closer together, until we realized that we had always been one.

it’s running barefoot through fields of immense imagination, scars and warts and rashes forming on our impressionable legs, the grass ripping at our hearts.

it’s an all nighter that forged a new connection, shared tears and pre-loved music shattering the walls that had been built around us by someone else.

it’s soft smiles around a campfire, the sound of the raging river greeting our souls in the deepest way, as expectation, anticipation and memory swirled into one.

it’s a hug shared in a magic valley, a kind of intimacy that we’d always chased but always run away from, and for the first time we knew we were broken together.

it’s the soft green glow from the clock we needed to care about (for curfew’s sake) and your body wrapped around mine so that i did the unthinkable with you

it’s fresh towels that welcomed us to a weekend i’d rather forget. 

it’s golf courses and sprinklers at dusk. 

it’s homemade ziplines and fresh sharpies.

it’s whooping as we flew

crying as we knew

and loving while we grew.

know that i’ll always, always, love 

you.