Happy

You make me happy.
I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was, at first, but that wasn’t your fault.
It was only because I wasn’t used to the feeling.

I felt my shoulders unclenching and my face softening into a smile and I thought, “What is this? What’s happening? But then, it kept happening. It happened when I touched you on your back and it happened when I woke up and you pulled me closer to you and tucked my head into your arm and it happened when I watched you giggle at a movie and offer me your popcorn. And I thought, “Is that what this is? Could I be… happy?”


You make me happy to talk to. I like when you call. I like when you text. I like when you email me just to respond to some silly joke I’ve posted. I like when we argue. I like when you tease me. I like when I make you laugh. Your smile is a surprise every time I see it — it cracks onto your face like it shouldn’t be there and my heart lifts and takes flight like a little duck making its first attempts at leaving home.

I want to jump into your sweet, lovely, elusive smile and float on my back in a lazy river inner tube as the heat kisses my limbs. Your smile is everything — and I mirror it and my face feels fresh and new and hot. You make me sweat in that good, humming way — like after a particularly buzzing and relaxing run.

I need the warmth you give me. Even in the dark, you are the constellations in the black sky, the campfire in the woods, the firefly against the glass of the mason jar.

You make me have little cartoon heart-eyes. You make me feel like I’m swimming in a crystal teal pool with bright yellow sunlight beaming down on me. And the sun is smiling and wearing sunglasses and maybe giving a thumbs up to a sunflower, who is also rocking shades. You make me feel like sweet sugary candy that leaves sticky imprints on a little kid’s eager fingers. Like sugar matted to plump cheeks. Like golden juices from biting a kiwi or a watermelon. You make me feel pink and flushed. You make me want to spin around and watch glitter cascade off my skin, floral skirt flapping in the soft, clean wind.

You blind me to the end. You fill my world with your smells and your caresses and the sound of you breathing — in sleep beside me, in movement beneath me, and the sweetest: in my ear.

You make me feel like vanilla ice cream cones and cool ocean water and icy, hands cupped together, wrists touching, noses nuzzling at hairlines, lips on the crinkle beside your eyes. You make me feel like little kids in rainbow bathing suits jumping in chaotic sprinkler systems across fresh green grass. You make me feel like fun and polka dots and loud music and life.

When you look at me, I mean, really look at me — eyes open and brown and focused — and you smile, really smile, like I’ve just done something wonderful and worthy — it’s the newest, the brightest, the happiest.