effulgence.

It's been one year since I met you and discovered that there are two realities: one, which has a heartbeat, bursting forth fireworks of blues and reds and yellows; the other, merely a machine whose monochromatic plateau feigns something like life.

I've found that very few things in this life are a simple yes or no, black or white.  So when people ask me how I know that this is it, forever, I just smile sheepishly and say, I just do.

Because, honestly, it's impossible to truly know.  There are no guarantees.  No checklists.  No a + b = c.

But what I do know gives me the wings to fly over logic, far above the thorns of skeptics and statistics.

I know that when you hold me, I feel safe and loved and whole.  I know that I could spend eternity in your arms, memorizing the melody of your breath, and never be in want of anything else, save for more time to discover the next stanza.

I know that when you kiss me, it feels familiar and uncharted at the very same time, like déjà vu from a story we'd forgotten we'd already written.  I know that I could kiss you forever and say everything I've ever been born to say.

I know that when you tell me you love me, you mean it with everything you are, every time.  I know that those three words, voiced thousands of times over the past few hundreds of days, still make my body ache with longing for the millions of years we'll never have to say it after we're gone.

I know that when you say goodbye, I blink back tears, painfully aware of the gray emptiness about to emerge from the darkness.

But I know that when we whisper in the moonlight about jobs and pets and babies and happily-ever-afters, we are planning our future, the only one we've ever had. 

Because it's been ten hours since I last saw you and all I've done since then is wander aimlessly around my apartment with my eyes closed, painting pictures of you.  And even though the world that surrounds us is black and white, I know that your effulgence will light our way home.