I've found that as I get older and meet more people the more obvious it becomes to me that the things they don't stand up for, form my opinion of them much faster than the words they do spout.

I'd leave you there
6 am and sound asleep
The windows wide open
Curtains dancing
Shorts scrunched around your hips
Mouth agape and supple
The sun tickling the stucco walls
Brown hair sprawled behind you
Beautiful
I'd leave you there

And before the day they met, he could not have told you what happiness felt like.

He could not explain the sensation of a growing smile.

Nor the rush of a fluttering heart.

He could not tell you what it meant to walk with purpose.

Because he had never been happy before.

But the day they met was a scene of overwhelming serendipity.

A smile smothered his face, and he could not force himself to remove it.

He could have sworn that there were birds attempting to escape the warming organ in his chest.

After meeting her, every step was a step closer to her.

And on the day he stuttered the word 'love', he couldn't have told you what sadness felt like.

When upset, she would always clutch her stomach protectively. She acted as if our relationship were inside her like a baby, and that clutching the baby would stop me from telling the truth. She thought it would stop me from telling her what she didn't want to hear. In the middle of an argument once, I stared down at her stomach, waiting for her to clutch it. She didn't. I knew she had given up. She was tired of hearing what no one else cared enough to tell her. She lost me. But the worst part was, she never actually had me in the first place. She had that baby. She had the feelings. She never had the person. She had how I made her feel. And now she's left with no one, because every relationship before ours was just as much a baby. She is alone.

We finish dinner and clear the plates
But he is sure to stow the last dish under his untucked chair
I run the sink full of water and begin scrubbing away
Finally, I finish chiseling the cooked cheese off the pan
And only once I think I'm done my job, does he skitter into the kitchen
I hear him come in and shuffle so he's beside me
The small bowl thunks down on the counter in front of me
Snickering and laughing, he hurries away
I sigh and grumble to myself
"What a jerk"
He waits until I'm done the dishes to bring in the last one
He lets me hang up the towel and drain the sink
He lets me believe I can relax
But then he brings in another dish
And that is how I know he loves me.

He was her angel

Innocent and gentle, but strong

The sweet rhapsody of his voice

He touched her soul with music and language

Together one heart

Thousands of moments, happy and sad

He always remembered the simple things

When she was slipping,

He held her close

He was her angel

Her hero

The one she loved most

For reasons unexplained and often misunderstood

A dampening of the sleeves and shirt

Repeatedly mistaken as the weep of just the lonely

Sometimes unintended or unexpected

Caused by a memory, a victory, a loss

A release of one's overwhelming feelings

Liquidized salt tumbling in drops, dribbles and drips

Leaves crystallized rivers stinging on cheeks