The Little Things

The little things are what matter at first,
things like common minute interests
having a love for animals
or saying a phrase that not many people use.
It’s the things like, the way your lip quivers right before your first kiss,
or the microscopic beads of sweat at the first interaction of your palms.
The way you catch their eye, when they thought you weren’t going to look,
and the ineffable turn of affection that fills the air when they’ve realized you did.

The little one-liners you say to each other, corny but cute,
and they mean everything in that moment.
The way they say hello or goodbye,
the little smirk they give as you walk towards them,
and the longing in their eyes for the night to never end when  you leave.

Before everything inside is bared and open for interpretation,
before they can see you angry, or sad, or confused,
before you see their flaws and their bad habits,
before you can both reach into the very depths of each other,
and you only see the naïve bliss that is the first.
The little things always matter, no matter how involved you become,
everything leads back to them.

Eventually, it becomes, Why don’t you look at me that way anymore?
Why don’t you say things like that anymore?
And the subtle but grandiose realization that everything in between was just…
filler sets in. And your eyes are opened to a world
 where the things that matter the most are the simplest concepts, terms of affection, expressions,
the ones that become long forgotten, overwritten by months, years
of a jumbled something we call a life.

The more we think about it,
the harder it becomes to see the ability to go back…
to have those simpler times, because we feel as though we are too far gone.
But time is just a book mark, it only marks the events in our lives,
organizes them so we can feel some level of comfort and control.
Never has it had the power to decide whether we go back.
Never has it claimed rights to enjoying the little things.