“You want to know my sweet?" I ask her.
She nods.
I kiss her on the forehead. "You. Always you.”
“She deserves to be kissed by someone who loves her. Someone who spends every waking moment trying to do everything right by her. Someone who would rather die than see her hurt. She doesn't deserve to be kissed by anyone other than me.”
“Then this girl completely shatters the window to my soul and crawls inside.”
“If I took every romantic poem, every book, every song, and every movie I've ever read, heard or seen and extracted the breathtaking moments, somehow bottling them up, they would pale in comparison to this moment.
This moment is incomparable.”
“You, baby girl. You’re my final piece.”
“Sometimes two people need to fall apart to realize how much they need to fall back together."
I take her hand and rest it between us, then stroke the back of it with my thumb. "Let's not fall apart again," I whisper.
She looks me in the eyes. "Never.”
“I turn to head outside when the boys make their way back into the house. Kel stops in the doorway and puts his hands on his hips, then looks up at me.
“Are you my sister’s boyfriend?”
I’m thrown off by his directness. I pull my jacket on and shake my head. “Um, no. Just her friend.”
“She told my mom you were taking her on a date. I thought only boyfriends took girls on dates.”
“Well,” I pause. “Sometimes boys take girls on dates to see if they want them to be their girlfriend.”
I notice Caulder standing beside me, taking in the conversation as if he’s just as curious. I wasn’t prepared to have to explain the rules of dating right now.
“So it’s like a test?” Caulder asks. “To see if you want Layken to be your girlfriend?”
I shrug and nod. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Kel laughs. “You aren’t gonna like her. She burps a lot. And she’s bossy. And she never lets me drink coffee, so she probably won’t let you have any, either. And she has really bad taste in music and sings way too loud and leaves her bras all over the house. It’s gross.”
I laugh. “Thanks for the warning. You think it’s too late to back out now?”
Kel shakes his head, missing my sarcasm completely. “No, she’s already dressed so you have to take her now.”
I sigh, pretending to be annoyed. “Well, it’s just a few hours. Hopefully she won’t burp a lot and boss me around and steal my coffee and sing to her really bad music and leave her bra in my car.”
Or hopefully she will.”
“Wife,” I say, staring straight into her eyes. “Think what you want, but there isn’t a single woman in this whole damn universe that I could ever love like I love you.”
“COMPLETELY.
Utterly.
Frozen.
My eyes drop to the table in front of me when she finishes. Her words are sinking in.
A boy that I'm seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.
In love with?
That's what she said.
In love with. As in present tense.
She loves me. Layken Cohen loves me.”
“Layken Cooper, I love you. I’ve loved you since the second I laid eyes on you and I haven’t stopped loving you for a second since.”
“My sweet is that me and Kel are finally brothers. My suck is that I now know what Will and Layken did during their honeymoon.”
“I held this girl in my arms
She wrapped her tiny fingers around mine.
It was then that I realized.
She was the fusion.
The glue.
The cement that bound all my pieces together.
The piece that seals my puzzle.
The piece that completes my life.
The element that makes me who I am.
Who I was.
Who I'll one day be.
You, baby girl.
You're my final piece.”
“I lie back on my pillow and think back to that day. The day that I fell for my wife.”
“I want to be your soulmate, even if I don't believe in them.”
“my final piece
We’re born into the world
As just one small piece to the puzzle
That makes up an entire life.
It’s up to us throughout our years,
to find all of our pieces that fit.
The pieces that connect who we are
To who we were
To who we’ll one day be.
Sometimes pieces will almost fit.
They’ll feel right.
We’ll carry them around for a while,
Hoping they’ll change shape.
Hoping they’ll conform to our puzzle.
But they won’t.
We’ll eventually have to let them go.
To find the puzzle that is their home.
Sometimes pieces won’t fit at all.
No matter how much we want them to.
We’ll shove them.
We’ll bend them.
We’ll break them.
But what isn’t meant to be,
won’t be.
Those are the hardest pieces of all to
accept.
The pieces of our puzzle
That just don’t belong.
But occasionally . . .
Not very often at all,
If we’re lucky,
If we pay enough attention,
We’ll find a
perfect match.
The pieces of the puzzle that slide right in
The pieces that hug the contours of our own
pieces.
The pieces that lock to us.
The pieces that we lock to.
The pieces that fit so well, we can’t tell
where our piece begins
And that piece ends.
Those pieces we call
Friends.
True loves.
Dreams.
Passions.
Beliefs.
Talents.
They’re all the pieces that complete our
puzzles.
They line the edges,
Frame the corners,
Fill the centers,
Those pieces are the pieces that make us
who we are.
Who we were.
Who we’ll one day be.
Up until today,
When I looked at my own puzzle,
I would see a finished piece.
I had the edges lined,
The corners framed,
The center filled.
It felt like it was complete.
All the pieces were there.
I had everything I wanted.
Everything I needed.
Everything I dreamt of.
But up until today,
I realized I had collected all
but one piece.
The most vital piece.
The piece that completes the picture.
The piece that completes my whole life.
I held this girl in my arms
She wrapped her tiny fingers around mine.
It was then that I realized
She was the fusion.
The glue.
The cement that bound all my pieces
together.
The piece that seals my puzzle.
The piece that completes my life.
The element that makes me who I am.
Who I was.
Who I’ll one day be.
You, baby girl.
You’re my final piece.”
“The line isn't so black and white anymore. I'm pretty sure gray just became my new favorite color.”
“Two more seconds without touching her and I. Will. Die.”
“I wish I could explain how I feel, but nothing can explain this moment. Not a vase of stars. Not a book. Not a song. Not even a poem. Nothing can explain the moment when the woman you would give your life for sees her daughter for the very first time.”
“This poem is very long
So long, in fact, that your attention span
May be stretched to its very limits
But that’s okay
It’s what’s so special about poetry
See, poetry takes time
We live in a time
Call it our culture or society
It doesn’t matter to me cause neither one rhymes
A time where most people don’t want to listen
Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire
Waiting until we can speak
No patience to listen
But this poem is long
It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem
You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things
You could’ve called your father
Call your father
You could be writing a postcard right now
Write a postcard
When was the last time you wrote a postcard?
You could be outside
You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset
Watch the sun rise
Maybe you could’ve written your own poem
A better poem
You could have played a tune or sung a song
You could have met your neighbor
And memorized their name
Memorize the name of your neighbor
You could’ve drawn a picture
(Or, at least, colored one in)
You could’ve started a book
Or finished a prayer
You could’ve talked to God
Pray
When was the last time you prayed?
Really prayed?
This is a long poem
So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it
When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute?
Or told them that you love them?
Tell your friends you love them
…no, I mean it, tell them
Say, I love you
Say, you make life worth living
Because that, is what friends do
Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done
During this very, very long poem
You could have connected
Maybe you are connecting
Maybe we’re connecting
See, I believe that the only things that really matter
In the grand scheme of life are God and people
And if people are made in the image of God
Then when you spend your time with people
It’s never wasted
And in this very long poem
I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does:
Make things simpler
We don’t need poems to make things more complicated
We have each other for that
We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter
To take time
A long time
To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment
Or for many moments
Cause we need each other
To hold the hands of a broken person
All you have to do is meet a person
Shake their hand
Look in their eyes
They are you
We are all broken together
But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess
We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes
To sit and listen to a very long poem
A story of a life
The joy of a friend and the grief of friend
To hold and be held
And be quiet
So, pray
Write a postcard
Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them
Turn off the TV
Create art as best as you can
Share as much as possible, especially money
Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard
And how afterward it brought you to them”
“This is it, Lake," I say pointing back and forth between us. "It's real now. I'm not walking away from you again. Ever."
Her eyes fill with tears. "Promise?" she whispers.
"I swear. I love you so much."
A tear rolls down her cheek. "Say it again," she whispers.”
“But every smile on your face
seems to replace
A memory I'd rather not hold
Each time you laugh, it fills a
void
Each kiss heals another wound
in my soul”
“I press my forehead against hers. "I'm so glad you showed up," I whisper. "You changed my life forever that night.”
“It's not your bra. It's our bra and I want it off." I slip it off her, pulling her against me as I rub my hands down the length of her back, then around to the button on the front of her jeans. "And I want to take off our pants."
She grins against my lips and slowly nods. "Okay, but hurry," she whispers.
"I can be quick," I assure her. "But I'll never hurry.”
“I just wanna make sure that you don't miss out on the things in life that are happening when you're not thinking. Because believe me, those are the best things in life.”
“She looked at me and smiled and said
"Are you ready?"
And I was.
I finally was.
I had never been more ready in my life.
Yeah...
This girl.
My mother would have loved this girl.
Too bad she was just a dream.”
“I love you so damn much, it hurts.' I force my lips against hers, then pull away just as fast. 'But it hurts in a really good way.”
“I want her to wait for me. I want her to wait for me so bad. I don’t want to think about her ever allowing anyone bedsides me to love her.”
“Before I love you can come out of my mouth again, the front door swings open and Julia walks outside. "We're going to have to set some ground rules," she says. There's more amusement in her voice than anger or annoyance.
"Sorry, Julia," I yell over my shoulder. I turn back to Lake and kiss her one last time, then take a step away from her. "It's just that I'm madly in love with your daughter!"
"Yeah." Julia laughs. "I can see that.”
“She doesn't speak, but she doesn't have to. I know in these moments, when it's just her and me and nothing else, that she truly, soul-deep loves me.”
“I love her. I know she loves me. And despite what Julia thinks is good for us, I want her to wait for me. We need to be together. We have to be together. If I don't stop her from walking away right now, I'll regret it for the rest of my life.”
“He'd still be who he was, and that, it seemed to him, was the basic problem.”
“The reason this system can’t be overthrown in this country,” Walter said, “is all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that they’re not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isn’t rational. It’s taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.”
“The date was October 27, 1915. The name of the ship was Endurance. The position was 69°5´ South, 51°30´ West—deep in the icy wasteland of the Antarctic’s treacherous Weddell Sea, just about midway between the South Pole and the nearest known outpost of humanity, some 1,200 miles away. Few men have borne the responsibility Shackleton did at that moment. Though he certainly was aware that their situation was desperate, he could not possibly have imagined then the physical and emotional demands that ultimately would be placed upon them, the rigors they would have to endure, the sufferings to which they would be subjected. They were for all practical purposes alone in the frozen Antarctic seas. It had been very nearly a year since they had last been in contact with civilization. Nobody in the outside world knew they were in trouble, much less where they were. They had no radio transmitter with which to notify any would-be rescuers, and it is doubtful that any rescuers could have reached them even if they had been able to broadcast an SOS. It was 1915, and there were no helicopters, no Weasels, no Sno-Cats, no suitable planes. Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out—they had to get themselves out. Shackleton”
“Tommen looked back to Ser Kevan. "Can I seal them now, Great-Uncle?" Pressing his royal seal into the hot wax was his favorite part of being king, so far.”
“Many BrainPal users find it useful to give their BrainPal a name other than BrainPal. Would you like to name your BrainPal at this time?
"Yes," I said.
Please speak the name you would like to give your BrainPal.
"Asshole," I said.
You have selected "Asshole," the BrainPal wrote, and to its credit it spelled the word correctly. Be aware that many recruits have selected this name for their BrainPal. Would you like to chose a different name?
"No," I said, and was proud that so many of my fellow recruits also felt this way about their BrainPal.
Your BrainPal is now Asshole, the BrainPal wrote. You may change this name in the future if you like. Now you must choose an access phrase to activate Asshole. While Asshole is active at all times it will only respond to commands after it has been activated. Please choose a short phrase. Asshole suggests "Activate Asshole" but you may choose another phrase. Please say your activation phrase now.
"Hey, Asshole," I said.
You have choosen "Hey, Asshole." Please say it again to confirm. I did. Then it asked me to choose a deactivation phrase. I chose (of course) "Go away, Asshole."
Would you like Asshole to refer to itself in the first person?
"Absolutely." I said.
I am Asshole.
"Of course you are.”
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