Did I ever tell you what it was like that night? I'd known you for only a few days, but I felt something. Similar to love at first sight, only each time I saw you, I felt like I was seeing you for the first time all over again. I never know what to say when I first meet someone, but there was this beauty in your eyes of a thousand years that I wanted to know. I felt like I was beginning to unfold a rose of a million petals. There was something so exquisite about you and I wanted to find it's core. I had silly butterflies in my stomach that night. I was naïve then, to think it might be simple. To think you might be simple.

Did I ever tell you what it was like that night? After I said there was nothing I wanted to tell you? I felt little fairies pull and tug at my lips into a smile as if I was happy, but I loved you. I grew up on the wind, holding tightly to my mothers hand, always trying to reach the place the sky meets the earth. I wanted to let go. I didn't know that the place I had my eyes set on didn't exist. I went to sleep watching an endless silent film of what happened, whispering to myself what I wanted to say. What I couldn't say. What I wasn't sure if I wanted to say. What I was afraid to say.

Did I ever tell you what it was like that night? After we achieved the unachievable and burned beautiful memories into our minds? We were dreamers then, runaways, walking in shadows but eyes locked on all of the places we wanted to be, all of the places we would be someday. I went home with a smile plastered onto my face, even though I tried to hide it. That night, I sang in my sleep, beautiful harmonies to the words we shared. I could still taste the hint of fear of getting caught, the hint of fear of admitting to myself how I felt. It was like carbon monoxide, that fear, invisible and harmful. But it was exciting.

Did I ever tell you what it was like that night? When I turned off all of the lights so I wouldn't accidentally see myself in a mirror? I didn't want to see how red my face was, how wet my cheeks were, how my eyes were like slits behind swollen bags. I didn't tell you? I'm sure you must know how I felt. I crawled into bed that night and rolled in my white comforter until it enveloped my body so I could pretend I knew what it was like to be held. And then in the morning, I slipped from my cocoon, a butterfly whose wings had become wet with tears and could not open. Did you know that when you pull apart a rose and grow closer to the center, the petals are not as pretty? They are bent and shriveled into each other, clinging as tightly as possible together to protect the center, the heart of the rose. I guess by the time I reached the center, the rose had died.