Love has a uniqueness, the inimitable influence that inspires art unlike anything else. Unmatched adoration is the artistry of every intellectual that dares to distribute the inner workings of their mind.

And her love is solely what has brought light to my life and gave me the confidence to admit to the world who I am.

It's her and the love she's given me that I have to thank, nothing else.

... . . . . . .

Golden

... . . . . . .

Golden as I open my eyes. I hold it, focus--he ramber waves that had gotten ruffled in sleep. Slumber so sound that only stretches into the light of day after a night of restless bodies and reckless actions.

Taking me back to the light of my dreams. Her the centerpiece as always, neverending study of her in consciousness and unconsciousness.

I know she's too bright for me, I'm hopeless, broken, so I wait for her to wake as I stare at the morning sky. The sunshine that browns my skin just right as she is nestled in my sheets.

This place became a true home once she'd moved in here for a week every month, once she'd walked back into my life.

"It's Phoebe..."

Those words had my heart stopping and it has been sent back into its eternal arrhythmia ever since. I'd rather die young than have my heart beat steadily into old age if her presence is the cause of my cardiac demise.

Loving her is the antidote and so I'm golden.

... . . . . . .

Watermelon Sugar

... . . . . . .

Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin', her lips are so sweet when they leave plush presses against my skin.

It's the end of June, a picnic in the park and a sauntering through a local bookstore and it was brought to a beauticious end in the booth of my favorite recording studio.

Now in the dimming light of my bedroom, all I want is her belly and that summer feeling, to get washed away in her.

I want her to breathe me in, to breathe me out.

I don't know if I could ever go without the taste of her lips on mine, the taste of her body on my tongue, the sounds of her whimpers hitting my ear, the warmth of her panting breath hitting my face, the entirety of her sensuality immersing my senses.

... . . . . . .

Adore You

... . . . . . .

An argument early on, days after she'd walked back in, an argument that needed to happen and was fueled by fiery love and burning insecurity.

Words of doubted admiration and untrusted motives.

"You don't have to say you love me again," I snap in frustration across the room as she paces near my front door, "I just wanna tell you somethin'."

She shook her head at my initiation of honesty.

"Lately you've been on my mind," I reached my hand out to her as I stepped to her, "Honey."

Her shaking head was halted by my arms wrapping around her body, "I don't want you to keep fighting for me, Harry. Is it even worth it?"

"Sunshine, I'd walk through fire for you," I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, "Just let me adore you."

And just like that, she melted in my arms and unrelenting bliss followed ever since. She let me adore her. I let her adore me.

Adoration led to the admittance of true love and that led to honesty of eternally enveloping emotions.

... . . . . . .

Lights Up

... . . . . . .

All the lights couldn't put out the dark, running through my heart.

The darkness of the backstage area as I awaited the signal to step onto stage.

Lights up and they know who you are.

Her words were circulating in my head from earlier that day, "Do you know who you are?"

The signal was given, the crew member, a man named Nathan, raised his index finger to make a circling motion before he pinched his thumb and fingers together prior to spreading them apart at an downward angle towards his face--Sun in sign language.

My feet take me to the center of the stage, I step into the light.

It shines so bright sometimes I'm shocked.

The cheers and applause that followed my entrance brought the answer to her question.

"Do you know who you are?"

I do now and I'm not ever going back.

... . . . . . .

Cherry

... . . . . . .

She is a work of art. Carved by a singular sentient soul to develop intricacies of individualities. Minutiae of mango milkshakes and 'pretty pleases with cherries on top.' Nuances of natural vermilion curls and 'I want to be brights.' Secrets of sincere sensuality and 'worship me thens.' Complications of constricting pasts and 'I should've known betters.' Complexities of Sunshine, stardust and dribbles of delicious syrup that sticks to skin and leaves tooth achingly sweet smiles spread across rouged cheeks.

I noticed that there's a piece of her in how I dress, I hope she takes it as a compliment. A ray of sun for a shirt or a mango shaded trouser. She is in everything I do and I would not want it any other way.

Each of her visits is punctuated with a kiss goodbye, or rather, a kiss of 'see you later.'

A kiss goodbye that is soon followed by a plea of, "One more, pretty please with a cherry on top?"

And of course I oblige, that final kiss goodbye is the cherry on top that rounds out the perfect sundae of her love.

... . . . . . .

Falling

... . . . . . .

"What am I now?" I questioned with a wavering sense of security as I spoke to her over the phone. I was in my bed, alone, as I spoke to her for the first time since she'd heard my song on the radio and called into the radio station.

"You are you," she said with a lack of confidence, "I'm still processing everything, Harry. Surely you can't expect me to give you an answer to that now."

"What if I'm someone I don't want around?" My voice cracked as I was overwhelmed with conflicting feelings, "Please, I need you to tell me that this isn't fleeting and that I'm not crazy."

I was falling again, I was falling again, I was falling--in love with her, in a spiral of my own insecurity, I was drowning and I didn't know how to resurface, hell I don't even know if I wanted to find my way back up.

"Harry please--" she started with a whine but I cut her off.

My words were blunt and pointed, "Am I someone you won't talk about?"

Falling again.

A long pause, a silence I'd never thought would end.

"Harry, I l-, I'd like to tell you, but I really can't have this conversation with you over the phone. I really care and I miss you too. All I've heard of you since you left are the songs you'd written, the ones about me."

I felt a brush of light--'I l-,' she loves me?

"I'm well aware I write too many songs about you," I chuckled as I let the lightness of her halted confession lift my spirits.

Falling, falling, falling.

Falling in love with her all over again.

It was too easy and I knew exactly why.

There was no one to blame that it ended the first time but the drink I'd let split us apart.

I was falling again and this time it was going to last.

... . . . . . .

To Be So Lonely

... . . . . . .

She brushed my hair from my face as we sat on the couch in her newly furnished apartment, "Did I ever tell you that I'd heard from you once after you left?"

I shook my head lightly with narrowing brows and pursed lips, "No?"

A smile spread across her cheeks and a mischievous look appeared in her eyes as she reached across the sofa for her phone, "I've got it right here."

I watched as she thumbed the screen to pull up a voicemail.

"Hello my Phoebe Mae," a slurred accent spilled through the speakers.

My eyes widened and an embarrassed rogue reddened my cheeks.

"Don't blame me for falling, I was just a little boy." My continued ramblings forced my head into my hands, "Don't blame the drunk calling, I wasn't ready for it all. You can't blame me, darling, not even a little bit. I know that I'm just an arrogant son of a bitch who can't admit when he's sorry. But if you ever have the audacity to call me back, please don't call me baby again. You got your reasons, so if you don't call me that's okay, but if you do, please don't call me baby. Okay, bye Sunshine, lo-"

A bleep cuts off the voicemail and as I lift my head from my hands she bursts into uncontrollable laughter, falling from the sofa onto the rug below which forces me to join her.

A fit of giggles and snorts and chuckles and gasps for breath on that soft rug.

I was ashamed but her laughter let it fade.

... . . . . . .

She

... . . . . . .

I woke up that morning, woke up to get ready for a day of work, a day of sitting in the studio slouched over that same notebook I'd had since she'd told me to write. I woke up that morning, knowing that even though I had the world at my disposal, I wouldn't be able to pull my mind away from her.

She lives in daydreams with me--daydreams of sweet morning kisses and sour goodbyes; daydreams of silken sheets and rosied cheeks, daydreams of her and daydreams of us, the new us, the together us.

She's the first face I see in the morning and the last face I see at night, just as I'd wanted. When I first was graced with her presence once again, I didn't know why because I didn't truly know who she was. I didn't know this fully formed, polished masterpiece of a woman, she was so strong and confident in herself, as should be.

I know her now, I know her and I'm more in love with her than ever.

... . . . . . .

Sunflower Vol. 6

... . . . . . .

I kept it sweet in my memory and I'd hoped she'd done the same, those first fumbling words when I met her at that cafe, how tongue tied I was at the sight of her and her blazing beauty. I didn't want to make her feel bad but I'd been trying so hard not to talk to her while I was getting my shit together. I wanted to do it for her but I knew I couldn't burden ehr with the process.

I was her sunflower once again. She was my bright blazing sun and I was her potted plant with thin stalks and sunflowers stretched up towards the heavens for a chance to bask in flickers of sugared sunbeams again, and even if it didn't pan out the way I naively allowed my hopes to wish, I was her sunflower again. But I knew that that was my chance to have her beams flow down the stalks of the plants and reach for their roots, touch each part of the dying flora to straighten its spine and liven its petals, to bring life back to the deceased, to find the lost.

I couldn't have wanted her anymore, and so now, just as before, we still kiss in the kitchen like it's a dance floor, we still dance in the refrigerator light, and we still eat pancakes for breakfast but now only on Sundays. We still have forkfuls of fluff and mouthfuls of mush, but now, we have hearts full of love.

I couldn't want her anymore, my heart was full of her.

My heart was full of Sunshine and so I bloomed.

... . . . . . .

Canyon Moon

... . . . . . .

Stared at the ceiling, two weeks till I'd be home, I had carried this feeling through Paris and all through Rome. I kept thinking back to her under that beautiful canyon moon, how her skin shimmered in that night light and how perfectly peaceful it had been. It felt as if for once, we well and truly were the only souls on this purposeless orbitor, only it wasn't purposeless anymore, because I'd found her.

"Harry, I love you," she spoke over the phone in a sickeningly sweet voice, a voice that lightened my darkened mind, "I'll see you in," she paused to check the calendar, I heard the rumbling of pillows and the padding of feet, "Only two weeks now."

And so, I couldn't wait to go home, to go home to her and spend more nights under a spectacular canyon moon and with an even more spectacular girl.

"I love you, Sunshine," I blew a kiss through the receiver, "I'll see you soon."

... . . . . . .

Treat People with Kindness

... . . . . . .

I couldn't fathom it at that table in the Beachwood Cafe, I couldn't understand that she was there and willing to sit with me, to talk to me again.

I asked her just that, why, "Phoebe, why're you doing this? I don't deserve it."

"I'm giving you a second chance," she admitted, "I don't need all the answers, I just need to know that you're healthy and willing to give me another chance too." She was so willing to treat me with a grace and a kindness I'd never known.

I was feeling good in my skin and in this moment I could've burst into dance at her statement, "I am, I'm healthy. Phoebe, I want to be with you."

Her smile, it was bright and it was honest. And in that moment I knew that everything I'd been through, everything I'd gained and everything I'd lost, was all for this moment.

It's all okay because I had her.

... . . . . . .

Fine Line

... . . . . . .

I'd put a price on emotion, looking for something to buy, I was numb after she left me. She had my deviation, I was hers forever, but man I could hate that sometimes.

There's a fine line between love and hate, I knew I had been toeing it ever since the beginning, I knew that I was never toeing it from the beginning. I stood and stared at the theatrical hatred I'd held for her, the unjustified distaste, I stood in the thick of all of the undeniable admiration I held for her. I loved her from the start.

I didn't want to fight her, I'd wanted to let her go so she could be happy. I didn't want to die, I couldn't sleep in that dirt knowing how I'd devastated her.

I'd down the drinks, hoping for an escape, but all I'd do was think of her.

It was a test of my patience, there's things no one will ever know, things I'm too ashamed to admit and too caring to burden them with.

She was my Sunshine, my temptress, but when my hand was at risk, I folded. It was the fear, it was crisp and it was strong, but I'd tried and succeeded in shaking it.

In the end I found out that spreading yourself open, being vulnerable, is the only way anyone will ever really know you.

And because of what I knew then, because of what I know now, I know that we'll be alright.

~~~

Author's Note