"I did not expect it to be so easy to find happiness. I was twenty one years old when I met her. I still drank Bailey's Irish Cream and I still listened to Oasis. I feel funny even writing that down. Six years later, I don't do these things. I pour M red wine and we put on Ethiopiques. In the morning we kiss goodbye and in the evening we ride our bikes over overpasses, along canals. You cannot see the stars in the city but still we lie on our backs in the grass and we pretend we can, like when I was twenty one and she swept me off my feet. Six years. I did not expect it to be so easy to find happiness.

Last night she turned to me with colour in her cheeks and she said something that felt complicated and direct and unwavering, like she was taking my hand and putting it in a fire, and taking my eyes and making me see that our hands were in a fire. As she spoke, I listened without any confusion, because she is M. I watched each expression flicker across her face. Colour in her cheeks. In my heart I said, secretly, Okay, enough. Let's. Let's. All our lives, we shall lie in the grass and see certain stars that one-another has imagined."

- 'Until', Said the Gramophone 

These sentiments: at once incomprehensible and illogical, and yet to you they're as clear as day that you wonder, 'Why does no one else see what I see?' 

Do I wish to be overcome with these feelings, these giddy sensations? Heck yes. Someday, maybe.

But for now, it is enough to know that they exist and once existed.