gotta see a man about a nitrous tank

This morning you woke me up to talk so that you could sleep (or so we both could, happily, soundly), and you asked if I would come to your defense, if I would be your knight in shining armor, but you already knew the answer, which is I guess why you spend your early morning hours calling me. If there was a way to verbally curl up in someone's arms, we've mastered it; it is what our latest evenings and earliest mornings are made of.

I am resolutely non-violent, but I think it safe to say that I would be turned Mongul for you, or freedom fighter, your name blazing upon my heart or tattooed across my fist. I would right wrongs in your name, vanquish your foes, the foes of your ideals. I would be your champion unrelenting, keep a vigil over you while you slept, be always the guardian of your infinite depths.

And perhaps this is how you fall in love with me. Perhaps you will see me stepping off the plane, staring down at my mp3 player and lost in sounds within my own head, and you will feel that familiar pang of longing that you have felt all along. I don't expect you here, and you could turn and leave and I would never be the wiser, but maybe instead you step forward, into my path so that I have to stop and look up. I see you, and that little leap of my heart greets me once more, and I know in that moment that I am yours, but I cannot tell you this. I smile shyly and remove earphones from my ears while I picture myself securely wrapped in your arms.

You ask about my flight and I cannot help but smile-- I hate planes, but I love being here with you, seeing that look in your eyes, hesitant and peaceful, as though all the fear of which you've spoken has melted away a bit just being here with me. I tell you about the flight as we walk to baggage claim, about my late night. You can see how tired I am and there's visible concern in your eyes, perhaps because you feel that I never sleep enough or perhaps because you're unsure in this moment what I think of you and you want quite desperately for it to be good.

Maybe this is how our love begins, with your arm brushing mine as I reach for my luggage, your hand almost on mind while we get in the taxi. You sit next to me, and I want to cry because I am so amazed by you, but mostly I want to rest my head on your shoulder and wrap my hand around your waist, curl up into you and go to sleep. You wouldn't mind, and I know this, but instead we sit on different sides of the cab and you ramble like you do about your family and the weather. You feel self-conscious, but I love listening to you, every word bringing this sense of calm down upon me. I barely noticed the chill in the air before because I was so overcome by hands brushing and the shape your breath took when you sighed, but now I find that I am underdressed. I shiver a little and try to shrug it off, but out of the corner of my eye, I see you reach reflexively for me, before your brain stops you with concerns about the familiarity of this reply. This is where our love begins.

i'd give up forever to kiss you...

i don't always feel like i can breathe.
and i can't always sleep at night.
and sometimes the tiniest thing can make me feel like everything is crumbling down, because i'm really only pretending to be happy. well, i'm kind of happy. i'm mostly happy. i like who i am, but i don't like where i am, and i feel trapped here a lot of the time, but i'm where i am because i'm afraid that i can't do any better. i'm in it for the money, because i like the things that it can do. i like the things that it could bring me. i like the idea of my profound freedom, the idea of travelling and having the things that are really important to me.
but in ten years, will i look back and think that i've wasted my youth waiting for... whatever i'm waiting for?
i don't want to be the person who gives up time with her friends and crazy adventures and unbelievable stories for LED lights and the idea that it won't get better than this. am i crazy to want something more than this? am i crazy to believe that there's more to life than this?

and then there's the fact that i'm crazy about someone, and i don't really know what to make of that. my heart tells me to just carry on at full speed, unapologetic and devoted, but my head tells me to be cautious. maybe my heart tells me that i've already been hurt enough, but i think it more likely that my heart just blazes lovingly on.

she's got this idea in her head that maybe this year will be better, that maybe despite her overwhelming pickiness, this might be the year that she doesn't remain alone. she's even, i'd go so far as to wager, got her heart set on me. and i may never be a safe bet, but i'm always the best one. i make her happy, and really, that's the rub... because she makes me happy, too. happy like... you didn't realize that there was something missing until the other person came along, and all of a sudden, someone gets you, really gets you, doesn't just accept you and love you like you are. gets you. knows what makes you tick, knows what makes your skin crawl, knows how to keep talking when you're upset so that you go back to just being you again. would cut off their arm in a bargain for your happiness. maybe even just for your smile.

and i want this. i want her smile, perpetually. i want her touch, her secrets. i want to know that each day of her life is a little bit happier because she's thought of me, or listened to a cd i sent her, or reading something that i wrote her. i want her to have a million brilliantly wonderful memories to fall back on, and i would go out of my way to create as many of those as possible. i want to memorize the path her tongue takes against my lips, the sound of her voice when she whispers, wake up in the morning and tell her about my dreams, whether raunchy and fabulous or terrible and frightful. i want to capture the feeling of slowly falling in love with her, tattoo it on my skin, inject it into every nerve cell in my body, hide it away and carry it with me forever. i want this feeling to last forever, and sometimes i wonder if perhaps it will, as this is not exhilerating rush so much as it is peace and calm, belonging.

belonging. to the perpetually homeless, this is new, beautiful, priceless. sometimes the tenderness makes me want to weep, out of all too strong joy. i am at home and i am so blissful that i could cry. i could hold on forever, and i could cry.