Sometimes words fall from my mouth like a waterfall into river, rippling from letters into waves of sentences forming long lines of poetry that carry through banks and across deltas, a never ending string of love letters that will someday reach you. Sometimes people tell me I talk too much about things that don't matter, and to that I can only laugh at the absurdity, for everything matters, we ourselves are made up of matter, particles and atoms that combine to make a person, all different, stripped down to every strand of D-N-A created to form Y-O-U, don't tell me that it doesn't matter when there is far too much beauty in every little thing, I like to take the world in small bites, never more than I can chew or handle, but I cannot hold my tongue to do so, so let me take it all in. Let me study your eyes as if I were majoring in connections and minoring in biology, the biology of you and how each cell works together to make your lips, lips I’ve been dying to taste, I can listen to every lecture but I learn better hands on, so teach me. Show me your past through bruises and scars, tell me that we have a future when your hands fold into mine, composing new crevices and cracks like a new scientific discovery only we invented it using our bodies as the subject and our touch as an experiment, testing new ways to create bonds and chemistry from our energy combined, the way your fingertips on my skin leave marks like blueprints to who you are and who you have been. Sometimes when you've been away too long, I read the dictionary, look up the definition for wonderful, there you are, redirected to amazing, I can't seem to get enough of you, see beautiful, and there's your smile. I don't throw the word perfect around, I hand wrap it, seal it with a kiss, tie it with a bow and sign "for your eyes only", perfection is a rare artifact, an aurora borealis in a sea of black nights, a magnetic line drawing me closer to you like a compass, only you are true north and all stars bend and conform into arrows leading me to you, I never did believe in fate, we all choose the paths we walk on, although I was lost and somehow you were there to point me in the right direction, at the right spot at the right hour in that split second, I don't believe in destiny, I believe in good timing, even though my clock is always ten minutes fast and you're always running late, we collided quicker than the speed of light, you don't believe in love but I believe in you and all you are, and sometimes, that's enough. Sometimes you tell me you're not a poet although you speak in sonnets, your words are hypnotic, entrancing and entangling, each sentence as if it were strung from a strand of silk, I hang onto every thread, I want to dot every unanswered question mark and end all unfinished lines with an exclamation point so you always have a reason to smile, wherever you go remember that we'll never leave on a period but an ellipsis because I know it's not the end, I will wait for however long it takes for you to return. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm an astronomer who's found a new celestial body, a different type of Saturn with rings of light rather than rocks surrounding it, instead of a shield barricading those who want to come close to admire its wonder, you are beacon, drawing in even the most modest of observers, guiding them towards you, embracing them in your glow. Against all other stars you shine the brightest, confident in your own luminescence but not arrogant in that you allow others to illuminate beside you, insisting to even the dimmest of rocks that they are diamonds and all they need is a little light to help them see, as if your heart was molded into two open arms waiting for someone to fit inside them, bending to become bricks and mortar building a sanctuary around those who look for shelter, shape shifting into a bridge over troubled waters. I would say you were a ladder with each rung being a hand helping me to reach higher, but to diminish you down to merely a stepping stone to further and better myself by treading on you, to depend on your support alone, would be the greatest insult I could give, you are no ladder, no pedestal for me to stand on, you are more than a missing piece of myself I need sewn into my side to feel whole, you don't complete me, you complement me, for even the parts of me I pick a part over analyze and dissect you remind me that they serve a purpose rather than becoming the reason itself. Sometimes, when I think I'm clever, I conceal my appreciation in kisses, as if written into my top and bottom lips were the words "thank you", I sneak those two syllables from my mouth onto yours, and even when you won't let me tell you, I'd show you in every little gesture and moment my gratitude, and even when you won’t let me say it, I’d find loopholes, instead of speaking it, I’d climb any and every mountain top to yell at the top of my lungs until my throat ached and all the air in my body compressed into those eight letters pushed off my tongue through treetops and telephone wires but if, and only if, you are peacefully dreaming, hopefully beside me, I’d whisper it softly, as if not to wake you, over and over again until the moon is too tired to carry itself. Sometimes, I forget to sleep like I forget to breathe. Something as simple as the innate need for oxygen to hug both lungs as if to reunite the pair in a thoughtful embrace occasionally slips through my thoughts like the way we try to hold water in our hands as we bring it to trembling lips, cracked and dry from dehydration, so desperate for the flavor of something so transparently tasteless, I forget to sleep like I always have but now for different reasons. I’ve spent one too many nights counting creaks in floorboards or faded footsteps on stairs from past lives, but for a while now, I’ve been counting down the days until I see you, hug you, kiss you, hold your hand, make you laugh, feel you, I’ve been counting up all the times you’ve made me smile, and just when I think I’ve totaled all one-million-seven-hundred-and-eighty-six, I remember this one instance when you said this one really funny thing and oh, wait, that’s one-million-seven-hundred-and-eighty-seven, but what about that other time when we were talking and that’s one-million-seven-hundred-and-eighty-eight, or was it one-million-eight-hundred-and-eighty-seven, and I convince myself it must be more than that, or maybe less, or more or less around that, so I start over, each night just to be absolutely one-hundred—no, one-million-seven-hundred-and-eightyish-percent sure that I haven’t missed a single one.

But of course, that’s only sometimes.