You & Me

by Tal Bauer

Failure lived inside me like an organ. I could feel it pumping alongside my heart. Keeping me alive, even when I didn’t want it to.

But if I could cut my failure out, would there be anything left of me?

It was built like a bowl, the home side rising four stories tall, while the diminutive visitors’ side stood only two. Architecturally, that was a Texas stare down.

In that moment, there’s a split-second decision a man makes: you’re holding forever in your hands, and you’re looking down the long, black barrel of the rest of your days. Choose now: Are you going to man up, or are you going to run? There’s no going back.

Being a parent is like driving a car without brakes. You grip the wheel and hold on tight, pray you don’t crash too hard.”

“You’re classically handsome. You have the face that all men want,” I said, grinning at him. “But there’s so much more to you. Your looks would be empty on anyone else. It’s who you are that fills everything in.”

“I can see your dedication in the lines of your face. Your work ethic in the cut of your jaw. I know you love life when I see you smile, and even when you’re not smiling, the laugh lines show you’d rather be. I know you’re a father when I look into your eyes, and I know you’re a good one when I see those eyes are kind. When you’re you, you light up, and all these different parts of you combine, and everything that you are bursts free. You’re like color exploding in a black-and-white world.”

I’d wanted the couch and Netflix and a neck to lay a kiss on. I wanted to lose myself in the familiar, bask in the life I’d built with my partner. I wanted certainty and forever and gentle love.

“I’m head over heels for you, Landon. You came into my life and flipped my world upside down. Everything has meaning again. I can’t get you out of my head. Your smile and your laugh have become my sun and my moon. You brought color into my world.”

“You are the gradations of undiscovered colors in my soul. You are the inhale before my blank canvas, the moment before my pencil touches the page. You are the manifestation of my dreams. You are my intensity.”