He felt it, around, in everything, in everywhere. In the sounds of a passing airplane making waves in the blue, spring sky. In the songs of birds enjoying a respite from the cold, harsh winter.

He felt it. Everywhere. He felt her.

He doubted she thought much of him, yet he didn’t care. The sparkle in her eyes set his mind ablaze, and the coolness of her thoughts rose his heart to joy. There was little in the flames of this passion that burned him, and there was little in the space between them that offered him much comfort.

There, the loner felt his aloneness, and the thinker felt the weight of his very soul.

There was little he could say about the youthful golden locks that brightened up his day. There was little he could offer in prayer to the green pools of beauty that saw things he wished he could see. There was nothing of her form he could touch, and he simply sighed his way to the gaps between them, the space between their stars.

The thinker sighed, the lover lamented, the man resigned himself to folly.

Somewhere, outside the vestiges of thought, lied the man about his life. He could not offer himself up to such a sacrifice, where love’s torment is met by utter silence. He could not spread his wings in the vacuum between those heartbeats. How could such an angel be left with nothing to raise him up to heaven’s gate, when love’s sails have no wind to give him flight?

Sometimes, that bird is left safely on its perch. Sometimes, feet planted firmly on the ground provide the only clouds a hapless man could ever hope to feel.

So play the tune
And watch me go,
Forever lost, 
I shall not know. 

Yet truth be told, 
I'm happy still, 
Where this compass points, 
Is where I will.

He’d hum his mantra when he felt her. He’d whistle at the very sight of her, imagining her voice whispering to him as the Sun set, her body nestled nicely upon his lap. He’d brush her hair aside, casually tasting her skin even when there was nothing casual about it. He’d show her love. Pure. Unapologetic. Love.

He could only dream. This dream. Countless nights torn between the song he sang and the music coursing through his soul. Maybe one day he’d get lucky, and his muse would set their world on edge with a simple, enduring harmony. Maybe, one day, she’d know him beyond the mere boundaries of mind, of body, of things that never were before.

Maybe.