We spoke differently and started making little sense to one another. Our tones did not please. They did not satisfy. Our manners that held our uniqueness put an inexplicable feeling in our hearts. At one time, it was a unique style, ours and only ours, and we used to express many things. It didn't matter if others understood it; it was ours. But a seed of doubt was planted, and suspicion grew.

We had the words “love” and “fear,” and we could use these in many conversations. But there was another tone, and we wanted to understand this last one. How does one explain that which does not have an explanation?

How does one find the words to the wordless? We wanted this; we demanded it.

Then our love became disproportionate and unbalanced. Our fear crept in, and

it was unequal. We could once balance out the two, so neither one grew to be too much; that is the problem, too much of either. How could one have too much love

or too much fear? One cannot; they simply cannot. When one has too much love, they choke themselves and another, like plants seeking daylight, fighting for sun. It starts in the chest, maybe in the heart. They only feel the stirring when the stirring becomes too great. Love or fear is spilled into another through their mouths, coming from their chests, and passed to another. Breathing this like life into another, exhaling it into the delicate cells, then passing about into the blood. When fear grabs hold, and the balance is no longer, it enters the mouth of another and causes the body to reject the breath; it no longer contains the nutrients of pure oxygen, and the lungs falter.

The memory of what it was like to breathe allows my spirit to drift into a place of nostalgia. The memories flood in;

I will ask, “What type of animal are you?”

You will smile such a smile, one that I have yet to see again. You tell me what you are, what your species is. It makes my heart leap fully and excitedly.

Yes!

Yes!

There is compatibility here.

Yes, we would fit together perfectly. We are compatible as animals, as beings, as souls.

Not yet, though; we will continue to smile playfully, coyly looking with sparkling eyes that speak without words.

Yes!

Yes!

Maybe “Yes!” is the third word, our unique word. Our third word. Our secret word. We have love and fear, and perhaps it is yes.

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

When we see another animal, an animal with which our bodies and minds are compatible, with which our souls could join, we can say "Yes!" Because "no" is not accurate, "no" is empty.

How can we say "no" to the living eyes of fire?

How can we say "no" to such a life?

We must say "yes" to that.

Because what possibility exists in "no." Do we not want to explore what "yes" could be

Yes is sitting in a park

Yes is in the sun under a brilliant blue sky

Yes is laughter that surpasses no

Yes is perhaps a prayer

(A holy word that holds the world)

Yes is the enlightened word

Yes is the word of creation

Yes is the word we say upon birth

(saying it with a small cry as we breathe for the first time)

My mind has rewritten it. Oh, holy mind. The same scenario but rewritten and replayed a thousand times. The shadow beings then and now desirous of one another. The fragments are as follows. These are the pieces I reconstruct my puzzle from. The parts are all there, but the puzzle is never complete; something doesn’t add up.

Our word, our word. It can’t be “Yes!”

The cold tip of your nose pressed against my cheek. I felt this, and then I heard the sound of your kiss and the feel of your lips on my skin. That was the order. You snuck behind me, wrapped your arms around my neck, and kissed my cheek. In that order, I remember it happening; the chilly tip of a nose, gently touched by the early spring, the sound of a kiss, the sound of your lips on my skin, and the feel of lips on my skin. How is it that one gesture, which lasted perhaps 10 seconds, is engraved upon my memory? Is this the dance that I was told about? The dance between here and there, waking and dreaming, consciousness and unconsciousness.

No, it isn't. I know this. I return to this: the brilliant sky, warm sun, and cool early spring air. I return again and again even after you have long since left. I go back even now, and I have left there, you have left, the city is gone, the city flooded, every last street.

The mind can modify everything that has and hasn't happened. How lucky, how unlucky we are.

The city flooded.