Part 1:- A laugh within the secret heart Happiness was the first time I heard the sound of your laughter In a brightly painted, crowded room where no one else but you existed And I hadn’t really noticed you before, but I did that day I cracked one of my horrible jokes and you let out a laugh But not just any laugh, no, the kind of rich laughter people take notice of The kind of laugh that sends a shiver from someone’s toes to their neck A loud, soulful guffaw followed by the faintest of snorts It ended in a stifled giggle that clung to my eardrums The soundwaves rolled off your tongue and down your body Gently caressing every inch of you on their way to me From the stygian hair with rolling waves like the ocean in summer To the snowy skin, the softness of which put your yellow dress to shame Kissing your soft, rosy cheeks the way I now often think to do Tumbling down your arms to the slender fingers I’ve since memorized Every tone soaked into me so deeply that they became permanent And have morphed into vibrant golds and reds that I alone can see Your laughter is my secret pleasure and I seek it every time I see you But no instance can compare with the first time The blissful moment when I realized I would go to great lengths If it meant, for even a moment, that those sounds would reach me Happiness is every time I hear the sound of your laughter Part 2: - A laugh within the secret heart You stand there, talking so quietly that I must lean in to hear you Wearing a deep blue dress covered in pink and red flowers That falls just past the middle of your thigh And exposes your skin that looks like honeyed milk, soft and golden pale And, my god, it takes everything in me not to reach out and touch you and the urge grows stronger every time I am near you and I am constantly questioning my ability to hold back, and I wonder if you even realize that you have this effect on me Or that I think about you And your thigh-length, deep blue dress with red and pink flowers And silently wish I had the courage, or the permission, to pull you closer Instead of trying to calm my heart from racing like a jackrabbit And quell my desperately dangerous desires Because, if I fail to hold them down, they will explode forth with enough force to push you away and ensure that you never stand so close, or speak so quietly to me again So, I focus on the red and pink flowers, and bring them to life in my head, imagining they smell like the rose blossoms my grandmother used to grow Because this helps me think less about the fact that you are more beautiful than the rose blossoms my grandmother used to grow And the pain of being stuck by one of their thorns pales in comparison to the ache I feel in my chest when I’m standing next to you This moment has been archived in my memory as the moment I first loved you Part 3: - A laugh within the secret heart I will never forget the moment you asked me to kiss you On the floor of your living room at midnight With tears in your eyes And fear in your voice And I will never forget the way that fear melted away When you told me you loved me And Heard me say it back. I look at you every morning as you get dressed And thank God for blessing me with you. I listen to your laughter And feel a warmth all the way down to my toes. I watch you rub the sleep from your eyes as you wake up And know there is no place I’d rather be. You are my heart My quiet amidst the raucous noise in my own head My peace in an endlessly restless world My calm in the storm My forever. I love you. ***