i miss the icy chill of the eastern winds doing the foxtrot on the apples of my cheeks while i gazed heaven-bound with eyes the size of the moon itself

the so-black-it-looks-blue sky shot through with silver milk and peppered with stars

stretching in an un-fathomable expanse

our universe is never ending

to us at least

constantly expanding

i remember my five year old mind wondering

if beyond the universe is heaven

and my five year old ears listening to my grandmother telling me the love story of the sun and the moon

i wonder why our skyscrapers like to block out heaven

what are we hiding from?

Saturday will be the first time

In 50 years

That you won't be there on Valentine's Day

To be his one and only

And it breaks my heart

The funny thing about my first love is that as soon as I stepped into my honors History class and saw him sitting there, in the space in front of mine, I knew that he'd end up being special to me.

I've been told my intuition is wickedly accurate, and I'm not one to doubt it. Even then, in my freshman year of high school. How could I have known that you would end up being so important? Even if I only got one glimpse of your charming smile?

But I did. I knew. And after a year of a friendship where he saw my heart get torn in every which way and we told each other our most innermost thoughts and even told each other about our crushes, that's when I realized what I had been chasing was right in front of me for that whole year. That's when I knew it, right in my bones.

He made me feel bold, confident. I knew that he felt the same as I did through a mutual friend, so I just went right out and told him how I felt, and I still remember his amazed yet soft smile, and my name being whispered on his lips, followed by the return of his mutual feelings.

Here I am, a year and three months later, and he still makes me feel bold and confident and above all else beautiful. Because he's still here, and in love with me.

And I'm still in love with him.

Somebody such as you cannot vanish.

I remember talking to him about you on the phone

And his coffee smooth voice that I've known since an infant cracked like dried mud in a desert

Intricate cracks

But large and noticeable

How could it not?

Small and delicate with a love for pansies

Skin with the aged but lustrous shimmer of pearls

Eyes a rich sepia

And hair the color of gumusservi

Come back