By Junior Velez
I sit here in the college library, staring at the clock as it ticks like a quiet scream counting seconds, leaves, dots in the carpet. But somehow, all the counting leads me to you. I count your smiles, your sighs, The ways you make me feel something. I wonder how many times I’ll get to run my fingers through your hair, how often I’ll rest against your heartbeat, like a metronome reminding me: a person this perfect truly lives. Between every poster, every email, Every code I write under flickering fluorescent lights It’s you. You're the reason I rush to class, Why I stay up late crafting things from nothing So I have stories to tell you. So I can be someone with even half your glow. I think of that smile, the one that undoes me. Your laugh, the one that steals mine. Your eyes, galaxies that shake my chest like distant thunder and storming clouds, I crave to chase. I love you like I love the moon: not for its light alone, but its mystery. Its pull. Its quiet way of showing up night after night. You shine in ways no cosmos could contain. I would search the stars, tear through constellations, comb every crater, wander every ship, every flake of dust in the black And still, I’d never find love That feels like this. Because no universe, no myth, no miracle comes close to what you are to me. I count it all. And I still count myself the luckiest to be yours.