So it begins, the smell of freshly spread paint mixed with sweet-sticky perspiration. Tireless preparation. Scrub the stains, pack what remains, stack boxes in bedrooms, eat lunch (Oreos and applesauce) while sitting cross-legged on the floor, write up a laundry list of things to do and realize there isn’t yet a washer, make a conscious effort to avoid spilling on new carpet but do it anyway.
If I were to make a list of the best feelings I know, the ones that smell of safety and taste of tenderness and call me with loving lungs, I would write: being held in small, strong arms and knowing I am protected with the very lifeblood running through them.
I took life apart to see what made stars glow; I wove a web of silver truth, untangled row by row.
We face our beginning; with one wrong step, our end. Both ends tangle as we explore—we share the now and could be. Time blends.
Unread texts swiped across my screen. I’d never call it personal—I’ve left him on read for a week, and I don’t reply to her as quickly as I used to. I hear the ding, I watch it flash, and for a few fleeting moments, I stare at black, bold text with fading, flooding thoughts.
Found: a poem, down a dusty old path that leaves have scraped with many final breaths. When asked why it lingered so, it laughed and held onto my arm, and hopped with wreaths of dry, pressed daisies (all the color drained) upon its golden head.
You touch where none have touched, catch my future as it flutters through. Cradling it, softly you ask, “You all right?” I cannot speak.
As far back as extends the human brain, did words by virtue of themselves enchant, aligned, symmetric, synchronized refrain, a verbal song, humanity’s descant.
Pain creates the darkness of the night washed away by the morning dew; love formed with the tick of a clock by the next breath was never true.
To the white and yellow wildflower sitting next to me in the grass, you look lonely. You are the only one of your kind in all the field, and I understand how much that aches.
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