you

I like things when I like you,
go ahead; laugh and slap
my shoulder and do all
of those actions that confirm
that I like things
when I hear you in them.

Others have made
my heart skip a beat or
caused self-conscious analyzation
developing a strategic heart warfare,
all those things predicated
upon a caveman's thirst.

A few I look forward to speaking to,
sharing moments like trading cards.
A handful I wouldn't mind
seeing again, frivolously typing their names
on search engines and social profile sites.

But it is with you, alone,
when I am me when
we are together and it is
you when I dream of what
the world can be if it wanted to.
It is you, however farfetched it seems,
that makes me enjoy my peripheral vision
a little more when I spin the globe
and point my finger,
hoping to stop at the future.

You are not born from fairytales,
nor are the singular hope that I assume most
hopeless romantics like to foist upon
the objects of their affection.
My hopes were planted on a plot
of land and grew. Now it has whittled
down into not wanting to die.

But it is you that keeps it grounded
in its base, and it is you who makes me like
waking up when I'm willing to wave the white flag.
We might not be meant to be, nor do
I feel fate catapulted us into our direction.
We are more than the sum of dreams
and intangible chemistry, more than
harmless pedestals that allow us to see others
from heights they have not yet earned.

I offer no heart-shaped cards, no declarative
statements, no 3-day rules, no calculated
acts for you to want me. I dream of things like
clocks saying "wait a minute" and offer no
such resolutions to that quandary. I can only
hope to see you again, with or without kids and
spouses, because you in my bed is not my
intended purpose or goal. You in
the air that I breathe is more than enough.