he is a big fish - the kind you don't throw back. i didn't realize it right away, it just found me one day.. the thought was there. and i guess it wasn't even a thought really - more of a gut-feeling. our tangled nights, the mornings when i awoke in tenderness to his hand brushing the hair from my face, the feel of him, the way he stares at me - it makes me ache.

we met years ago - i was young and naive but even then drawn to him. he is smart though, and knew i was in no place for him. he had a bite to him, the world is just a wave and he knew it - let go or be dragged. and in a town like mine, you don't just stop seeing someone. you see them everywhere - on the corner down the block from your favorite shop, at a concert the neighborhood is jiving toward. people with the same interests hung around the same places. and that's what it was when we were young, we were friends. we were not in love.

years pass. who you were then isn't the person you see on the other side of your sleepy morning eyes now. you come into your own - in your own ways - and it took some mistakes on my part to realize who that was. i'm still not all the way there yet. growing up i thought life was a straight line, the things expected of me falling within it. you force yourself into people that way - telling yourself this is it, this is what it's suppose to be like. it's not.

you know that part of the day when the light shines through the windows and into your room in those little shapes and patterns, down the walls and then fades softly off as the sun dims - that's how i've always seen life, at least my life is made of small moments like that. i've always felt just a little bit out of place - wandering around thinking so much, trying to feel it all. i've never traveled anywhere in the world, i've just always imagined where the singular me would go.

not anymore. for the first time ever, i think - where will our future take us.

i remember the night i knew i was lost to him. i had been out having drinks with friends one early summer evening, when the chill of a spring colder than you remembered still lingered in the air. he had been there for a time, and we did our bests to pay no mind to the other - at least that's how it feels thinking back to such a strange time in my life. we sat at opposite sides the whole night, and it wasn't until i stepped outside to talk with my friend over a crushed smoke and a laugh that i met eyes with him. i will never forget the way his eyes shined back at me with such quiet reverence.

our moments slip together in those quiet deliberate spaces - long looks from across a room, heads bending down to kiss a hand - like dreams. like finding something i never knew i'd lost. that slow motion sequence of dancing, of laughing closely in crowded halls - i've felt that with him, of being his.

you are a rare kind of magic to me. like nothing i've ever seen before or will know again. i love you. thank you for being in my life and accepting me fully - faults and all.

KP