4:42 AM

I was dreaming of war, something that I didn’t do often. Now, I have never killed anyone. Not even in a dream. But, I found myself with a gun to a stranger’s chest and an increased heart rate reminding me that I needed to make a decision.

How does someone who absolutely detests violence come to be dreaming about being a soldier?

I tried to reason with myself and the others around me. “Kill her,” her own brothers even said. It seemed to be that I was the only one who was really debating sparing her. Tears began to stream down my face. I knew that I had a job to protect the woman that everyone was shooting at, amazing how she hadn’t been shot already.

I also knew that if I let this soldier live, she would just go back to doing the same thing. And it would show the other soldiers that I wasn’t, in fact, cut out for this. We would probably wind up in a similar situation down the road. Having so much power over another’s life terrified me beyond a point of reason.

I will never know what my dream self did, because I awoke to a sun barely rising on a foggy Thursday morning. 4:42 AM. The heat of the June night would soon evolve to a greater humidity when the sun crept up over the full tree line.

I rolled over in the gray tangle of sheets that I had created in the night. I rubbed my eyes so hard that I began to see stars in my head. I breathed in two deep breaths before hitting my feet to the carpet.

My rheumatic legs began to wake up when I walked over to the windows that dripped with perspiration. I looked out into the distance only to find fog and a dark blue sky with an amber ombre beginning. Everything looked so peaceful. Birds chirping came into my ears. I felt a small comfort in my hollow heart, knowing that my reality wasn’t how it seemed to be in my dream.

Tiny bumps arose on my bare skin, reminding me of the warm bed I had abandoned. I crept away from the window to wrap up alone in a bed for two. I found no solace when the bed had gone cold so quickly.

I hoped to dream of a time when there would be someone to keep the blankets heated when I got up for a moment in the night, or someone to hold me when I dreamt about a war I did not want to fight in.

I closed my eyes and tried to beat the rising sun with sleep. With another deep breath, I was quickly falling back to unconsciousness.

Realizing In Love

I fell in love when I was fourteen years old. 
It was’t actually falling, now that I think about it, it was more like realizing. I realized I was in love when I was fourteen. I think my heart always knew that I was in love with her, but my brain denied the idea. 
It was a day that the clouds hung so low in the sky that if we only had the right ladder we could touch them. We had been watching the clouds all day, picking out shapes in the white cotton candy that filled the sky and making stories about the creatures that breezed by. 
She shot up from the grass with a confused look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” 
She wiped her forehead.
“It doesn’t look like rain,” she said befuddled. She looked around trying to find black in the sky. Then I felt it too, a drop of moisture from this perfectly sunny sky. 
I only blinked one time, then is was down pouring. 
We both got up and ran trying to find shelter, then she stopped. She just started laughing. I thought I was missing something, so I stopped too, and I realized why she was laughing. I started laughing too.
It was beautiful, the fact that it was storming in broad daylight. And we were trying to run away from it. 
She looked into the sky with her big brown eyes and breathed in life. That’s when I realized that this was her; this was who she is. She is bright and beautiful as the sun, she can make you feel warm and brighten your heart, but she had an everlasting storm in her life. She did all that she could to turn a hurricane into just another summer rain.
She spun around to look me dead in the eyes, and I swear it was like seeing her for the first time.I mean sure, I’d seen her plenty of times, but I was just looking at her before. Now I see her, I don’t know what it is but there is something different about her.
The way she makes me feel, the way she effortlessly holds my heart in her hands. She has this whole time and I didn’t even know it.
I feel stupid for not catching her earlier when she’s been right in front of me this whole time. 
She just smiles at me, and it kills me a little bit. She kills me a little bit. 
I feel like my whole life I’ve been looking at the world upside down and I’m just now seeing it right side up. 
I don’t know what love is. I’m just a boy, but if I had to take a shot in the dark I’d say this was love, and I can’t believe I’m just now coming to terms with it. 

Cosmic Love

I was in the deepest love I had ever felt. It was so much more than a physical attraction, it was the kind that you never would have thought turned into anything. Then all of the sudden it was my everything. 

I didn’t fall in love with the way he ran his long fingers through his hair, or the way he laughed at anything and everything remotely funny. I fell in love with the words that poured out from his mouth and the honesty he shared with me. I fell in love with the thoughts he was brave enough to say out loud and the strength that lives within his soul. 

We were addicted to each other. No matter how much we spoke it was never enough to fill the the part of your heart that begged for them. We drew off of each other, growing through the other’s words. 

Every touch was a shock on my fragile skin, reminding me that I was all too human. Every laugh was an escape from the dreadful world. When he smiled I swear I could see the stars in his eyes. He was my cosmic love. 

He knew that there wasn’t a thing in the world that I wouldn’t do for him and he started to use that to his own advantage. 

I loved him more, but he needed me more. It should never have gotten to that point when the circumstances weren’t balanced, because that’s what threw us off. 
I just hope that he remembers who he told me he wants to be and that he remembers that there is someone out there who loves him for more than just his name. We will both move on and this feeling will become numb, I just hope he leaves knowing that a little part of me will always he here, waiting.