It's because life means more to me than parties and fireworks. When I live it by the clock, I'm living it by more than the unpredictable, more than the unattainable. You could open the door on my perfect day.


Let's sit under a tree ' or in a tree ' and you can read me all your favorite verses from all of your favorite novels. When you do, change your octave with each new sentence and I wouldn't mind your best impersonation of a Russian accent. Maybe singing it would shine a whole different light on what you had thought before.


Let's just go up to my room when it's quiet and dark. We'll play a game with flashlights: I'll ask you a question, if it's true then you turn the light on (and keep it on if the answer is still true). When the answer is false, you just turn it off (and keep it off if the answer is still false). If I ask you a question you just don't know how to answer, you can find my lips and kiss me in that silent-film way.

(Or we could get a big bowl of M&M's and, for everyone we eat, we have to say something ' we can't be looking when we pick. The blue ones are the truths; the red ones are lies; yellows are secret ambitions; green ones are the nice things we can say about ourselves; oranges are our favorite songs; browns are freebies.)


Let's just go for a drive and stop at all the random stores. Along the way, we can go buy Post It notes (any color you want) and sharpies. We'll cover each other with them covered in all the reasons we love each other:

'You smell like happiness and broken pens'

'When you're not speaking, you write the loveliest poems'

'Time means nothing to you, but the moments do'

'Your skin is like the taste of ice cream and the feel of coffee'


Let's go for a long walk. Along the way, we'll name all of the flowers we see ' warm colors are boys and the cool colors are girls. For every name that begins with a vowel, we'll pick up the flower. Once we get back home, we'll replant them. It doesn't matter if they grow or not (I'd like our love to stay right where it's at anyway).


Here's my Rubik's Cube. I'm not asking you to solve it. I think we should try to make all the sides (or maybe just one would make me giggle) into hearts ' squares are so boring. If we can't make the heart, then we'll just break off all of the pieces. I'd gladly marry you right here, with this white block in my hand to tell the story my heart's been reading. Did I ever tell you that you're a really good writer?


Let's paint pictures of sunsets and cats; let's make a sentence out of all the guitar string notes (Every Afternoon Dies, Gesturing Better Evenings; Even A Disaster Grows Beyond Emergencies); let's turn the music up as loud as we can and whisper along to the words; let's climb up on a roof and share what each tree below, or next to, us makes us feel; let's call the pizza place, ask the receiver if he's busy ' if he isn't, we'll give him an interview ('Are you for Batman or Superman?', 'What are your real ambitions?', 'Spell love the way you imagine it');


Let's just promise each other that we won't untangle our hearts' seams, even when we untangle our fingers. Promise me that you'll be my blanket when mine is in the washer and my alarm clock when I've been out too long. Let me promise you all the random pretty lines in my head and all the heart that I can mush into every breath behind my kisses. Let's promise that when it all gets dark, love will lead us back into each other's arms to emit the glow we've been so famous for (the paparazzi's been after us).


That would make my perfect day ' allow me to press 'repeat'.