People used to tell me I didn't know what love was. That I was a kid, and kids couldn't possibly understand something as complex as love.

But as I grow older, I'm starting to realize. My adult self has lost the capacity to love nearly as much as my childhood self could do. I used to listen to all the beautiful notes that my beating heart played for me. Now, just muffles of ecstasy.

And if not for that little bird that keeps me company. The mild denizen of my faceted mind who knocks on its walls and echoes over and over that "Silence is where life hides the truth". If it weren't for those constant reminders, I'd be pulled into the same river of apathy that I swore I hated so much.

The rests and the pauses were what kept Ravel and Debussy up at night, drunk and thinking and writing the path out of hell onto five black lines before they lost the directions.
And though we are not a French Impressionists, the rests and pauses are yours and mine
They keep us banked here, away from the river and under the twinkling night stars.

They keep me dreaming and they keep me aware.
That I love you.