we are a sunrise.

we are no more than a softly whispered if.

we are smoke rings in the dark, soap bubbles on the lip of the water. we are bright eyes and shy fingers touching through the veil of introductions. we are racing side by side down separate book aisles, not calling out to one another but comforted in the echo of each others' pulse. we are strangers who aren't strange to one another at all, promises scrawled in folded pieces of paper, slipped under door cracks in the middle of the night.

possibilities are glowing iridescent between us, eyes overbright as we dance circles around one another. we're shoved into rooms filtered with sundust, lips praying as palms, fingers caught into oil-dark curls and tracing faintly dimpled cheeks. futures are unwound on the spin of a syllable, one second breaking everything we thought we knew about how our lives would go.

whole existences are leaping forward from the shadows with the power of a freight train, knocking out everything we've ever known to be true. we still haven't found our feet but we're finding them together, stumbling with weak knees and splintering ankles, laughing as we tumble down side by side. because we're nothing new and nothing old. we're recording our pulses and putting them on repeat to dance to all night long.

and suddenly, the most beautiful word in the entire world is if.
suddenly, the most beautiful maybe in the entire world is us.