Secret Chord

Sometimes I just get that itch to drive. Not in the city, because the brightness disrupts the quiet night. No, I like Hwy G and all its faded, forlorn glory. There are the occasional headlights that shine right in my eyes, but then I am left to the darkness that is soothing like ice on a burn. The darkness that wraps around my car as it slides along the gritty tongue of road, my soft songs surrounding me, the sound of my voice that is swallowed up by things infinite and bigger than I am. Dustin texted me and asked me where I was going, and I replied simply, "Anywhere."
These late night drives do something wonderful to soothe the restlessness of my soul. I am taken in by how quiet everything is. I find myself wishing that I lived in the past, where there were no street limit signs and very few cars. Where you could park your car near a field and lay quietly there and just watch the stars twinkle merrily.
I was doubly taken in when, later, Dustin and I chanced to walk the quaint streets of my neighborhood. Him, with his cigars, and me, with my cigarettes. We walked, and sputtered out feelings and frustrations and hopes and dreams. There was a brisk breeze and the shelter of night. Dozens of streetlamps lit the ways down roads called "Juniper" and "Redwood". Names that snap like silk buttons on your tongue. His hair was tousled and gold, his eyes that gray-blue that cause me to rhapsodize on OD so easily. He looked at me and said, "I’m going to get really sappy, but I can’t help it." I laid back against my favorite pillow, and rolled my eyes.
He said, "I am so completely in love with you, it’s crazy."
No silken words, no lyrical verses or metaphors or lovely adjectives. But that’s not him at all, that’s just me. And so when those words hit, they fell into my lap like a ton of bricks. And I gathered them up and a tear formed in my right eye, so I pushed my hair out of my face and smiled warmly and said,
"Ew, gross, stop."
And he smiled back at me, because it’s our way. We are not a traditional pair, but we match up perfectly. He understands my reaction, not for the words I said, but for the way my smile appeared on my face and how my hands took to plucking at stray fibers on my pillowcase. He understands what I mean; there is no misinterpretation.
And I am falling, for the first time. I am really letting go and letting myself fall because I’ve been through it all. I’ve been with other people, and nothing, absolutely no one, even TOUCHED this. This an experience all it’s own, and it always has been. There are sparkles in my soul when he runs his fingers over my arms, when his blue eyes just stare at me from time to time.
Even now, I can stare at my bouquet of random, surprise roses and think to myself, "What did I do to deserve this?" And then I smile, knowing it is just pure circumstance, maybe a dash of fate, that caused us to happen in the first place. And through everything, we still get a second chance to make it work? Oh, baby,

Cheers to all the true love in the world that is merely and completely unexplainable,
Amanda.