Half-smile

                In waking dreams, I see a wedding. It is a simple ceremony on the coast, on a grassy cliff overlooking the ocean. An outdoor setting, with only the closest of friends and family. No stragglers, no extras. You stand there, a small smile on your face, holding tears back in your eyes as the words were said. No veil, just a simple band around your head with your favorite flower, a violet.

                The time stands still as the wind wisps past us in the moments leading up to the bond being made. Your gown flitters gently and the flowers in your hand dance slowly together, foreshadowing the dance we’d soon share as husband and wife. I know you can see it as well as I and it gives your love extra strength in that moment. Since that’s how this all started, on the dance floor.

                All I can do is stare into your longing eyes as all the noise around me dies. The song, our song, playing softly in my head as I reminisce to that late night in October. How I watched you dance, all alone on the dance floor waiting for someone to join you. I took a sip of my drink and obliged. Thankfully for us both it wasn’t the normal bump and grind, it turned into something more intimate. Not a slow dance but something more, more beautiful. A song to accompany your beauty in that moment.

                Like the words of a song once heard in passing on our road trip out west, I knew I loved you from that moment. I couldn’t tell you then, that took a few months to emerge but when I did I knew I was right. I was right all along.

                As the waking dream fades to the reality before me, I see you standing in line at the coffee shop ordering your drink and I pretend we are strangers for an instant. I see your face light up as you turn to see me staring at you, a smile emerging on my lips as you come closer. No words need be spoken in that moment. There’s just a feeling, a notion that I know my dream will come true. That there is no doubt you feel the same things too.

                “I love you.” I say as you sit. Your face beams from the unexpected declaration. You lean in for a kiss that lasts a little longer, has a little more feeling than a kiss from earlier that day.
                “I love you.” You repeat. Adding the “too” would lessen it somehow, and we both know it. All that need be said has been now. The days will move forward for us, together. Always together, dreams becoming realities.