she got anxious and angry and began to cry.

“i dunno, i thought you would stop loving me if i told you.”

“that’s never ever ever going to happen. you silly little girl.”

his arms outstretched and opened to her. she was a little uneasy and still so very inquisitive on the matter but her heart was an unstable little heap of veins and arteries and she needed to collapse in the welcoming beacon of cotton and skin and beard scruff on her forehead. 

once she hit that mark, her knees buckled and she leaned her whole weight. 

in a muffled voice, compressed by his chest for her face rested in it, “i don’t know why i did it, honest i don’t. i love you, that’s all. thats why i do what i do. it’s cause i love you. i always have, i never won’t. please, please tell me you feel it. see it. tell me what i want to hear. i don’t think my poor little heart could take it.” she breathed in deeply, hoping to bury her words, to suck them back up and choke them down to the depths and pits of her empty stomach. it just kept spewing from her terrible little mouth.

“i do, i love you, i love you a million and one times, i love you and i love your soft dark hair and how it falls in front of your oval shaped face and the way your eyelashes flick up, pointing towards heaven. i love when you squeeze my hand, just to let me know you’re there and that you notice. i love you because of all the fucked up shit you do. it all just melts off of me when i look at you, when i see you demurely swaying in the dim lamp light. i love you. i didn’t think i did, i didn’t think i knew what love was, but i feel it for you and i want to feel it forever.”

every inch of skin, every drop of rain, every slight shy at the touch. it all makes me love you more. makes me want you more. i remember every look on your face. i remember careening down that quiet, narrow road in the middle of the night. you told me, “mind like a balloon” and that was all you said. mind like a balloon. mind like a balloon. for weeks i wondered what it meant. did your mind swell like a balloon, filled with all of the wonderful or treacherous things of day to day life. was your mind like a balloon because it started out empty and, over the years, was filled to the brim, about ready to burst if its sheath was pulled any tighter? weeks turned into months which turned into a year and i slowly forgot about this phrase. we went about our lives. i continued to adore you silently and you continued to give me reasons to fall even harder. the following week was your birthday. it was on a friday. that tuesday was the anniversary of the day you had told me, “mind like a balloon”, and i was determined to find out what it meant. i wondered from saturday to monday if you would remember that phrase. i slaved over schemes to bring it up casually. finally, i decided to write it on the inside of your birthday card. the front of the card was a black and white photo of a balloon floating high above a cityscape. you opened the card and read the one thing i had written. i said a silent prayer that it would ring familiar in your hears. you spoke the words out loud;

“mind like a balloon” your voice crooned the words so non chalantly, so perfectly, just like before.

“you remembered,” you said. 

“of course i did. it’s such a lovely thing to say.” i didn’t want to sound dumb and admit that i had not a clue to what it meant.

“normally my similes and metaphors just sound ridiculous and don;t make much sense. but i saved that one for you because its how i picture you in my head. you have such a beautiful mind, and it floats high above all the rest. it’s full of those important things that keep it afloat and it gently hovers just above everyone else. it’s beautiful, just like you.”

i was speechless. this answer was more lovely than any else i had hoped for. i blushed and smiled, demurely lowing my gaze as if to express that, “awe shucks” feeling that can often wash over you in these such instances.

i was so glad to know you. so utterly glad.