Things I never told you

I fall in love a lot.

With the decadent spreads of monochrome and slivers of steel and spikes on glossy magazine pages.

The introductory synth-pop or moody, dark-rock guitar riff of a song from another Phoenix or Wye Oak

The fleeting gazes met with the beautiful whilst scanning through a sea of foreign faces.

But my eyes could've, should've known better.

When I finally overcame my cowardice to look you dead in the eye without faltering I may have fallen in love again.

But this time, it is no multi-second, estrogen-fueled infatuation. It is no exaggeration on my part despite my flair for the art of it. It is no romanticism. It is no attention-seeking statement, only a promise; a truth. 

I love a lot of things,

But among all I love you most, better; more fiercely than I ever thought possible.

I wonder if this happens to everyone. You meet someone, and you don't understand how you settled for anything other than this. This. You will your brain to summon back every memory, of conversations that lasted more than they should have. The fuzz in your gut and then you suddenly find yourself in the awareness that you've bared even the most offensive parts of your soul, and you didn't even have to try. Of course, you didn't bare all of it. There's that part where you've developed some sort of attachment, affinity towards that someone. You can't tell them that. You won't admit it, even to yourself. You have all these feelings and they stupefy you, confuse the hell out of you. You're nervous, anxious, for what? You lose some sleep and you talk to friends, even try to tell yourself you're lapsing into the dreaded state of over thinking and disillusionment again. But yet, you feel the rush and the excitement that is the glimmer of hope that something might conspire in the near future. You're talking to them and they're breaking out into that unconstrained laugh that takes over their entire body and soon the infectiousness of it all gets you too and you're bent over in stitches. Amidst the giddying laughter and mirth, you find yourself wanting to be the cause of that amusement. You put a momentary halt to the abdominal torture and there's that thing when your eyes meet for an excruciatingly long time and you look away because it feels like you've been scorched by the heat that is the red in your cheeks. You're embarrassed because the thought of whether those lips are as soft as they looked crossed your mind. 

Then there's that one night, one of you is upset and the other flies to their side. Fears are allayed, soothing words muttered and tender ministrations given. This person, this amazing person you've come to know, who has weathered through every funk you've been in, is standing before you and before you know it, those feelings you've questioned, brushed off, developed, bottled up, are out in the open. 

And the rest is history.