"So, what do you do for fun?"

Oh, I write ****** poems in my spare time
that I intend to one day read
but know I'll never stomach
the bravery
required to re-evalutate my own work.

Casually composing garbage and wasting perfectly good paper.

As a ginger, I'm inclined to say fox. I've always had an affinity for those cunning, red canines.

But if it's just for a day then perhaps something a bit more adventurous. I suppose I would choose to be a cheetah.

Fastest land animal in the world, agile, and speckled.

Nobody messes with a cheetah. Not because they’re so hulking or intimidating— just more fascinating than terrifying.

We travelled to South Africa once, my family and I. As a tribe we chased wild creatures down with cameras in jeeps in a raucous yet hushed thrill.  

The cheetah was one of the few animals that eluded us. Perhaps having never seen one up close is partially what draws me to them.  

Mysterious, as well as evasive, with an "I don't give a ****" attitude.

They only eat every so often because catching food is such a feat. When they do hunt however, it's one of the most spectacular things in the natural world.

It's why places that sell tv's show footage of cheetahs running in slow motion over and over on a dizzying loop; demonstrating how clear the pixels are in the plasmas. It's mesmerizing.

Their feet move too fast and fly over the dirt, honed in on whatever poor gazelle or kudu they're after. If you're a cheetah that is your body, your thin bones, your rapid heart and beating paws that make you move in such a blur.

To be a cheetah for a day is feeling and knowing the difference between machine and muscle. Humans have found ways to fly, and people regularly move faster than a top speed of 75mph.

But how sublime it would be!
To be solely and purely responsible for that unparalleled speed just for one day.

There was a little blue book,
with red ribbons that pulsed between pages,
And black and purple ink that ran amok across blank paper.

Little-blue was filled with poetry,
It flowed freely from the mind onto parchment,
So naturally that it was like respirating. Vital.

Happy poems about the radiating sun,
The changing of the seasons and nature,
And of course about love. Above all about love.

Then something shifted, as these things tend to do.
And Little-blue lost its pull and comfort.
Ribbons tattered, ink distorted and splashed.

Somewhere between a city and a starry sky,
Little-blue was tossed out and left,
Maybe for someone new, or perhaps just to rot.

I don’t want you back.
Instead:
Give me back every compliment ever given,
Every whispered time I uttered that four lettered word,
And meant it.
Give me back the hours together doing nothing but enjoying each other’s company.

I want those instead.

Because if I had them back…
Then maybe I’d be willing to give them,
to someone else.
But you have them.
You have them all.

Every night before I leave,
A parting kiss before we sleep.

Murmured words in my ear,
I repeat my question so you'll hear...

Will I see you tomorrow baby?
Always the same answer..."if you're lucky."

And I always am.

There are so many words that struggle silently on the mind,
too scared to become sound waves so they’re strangled somewhere
between thoughts and windpipe.

I want to ask so much from you but asking too much from people
Is how you make them scatter and run an evasive pattern fastest from you
Because no favors are free.

Sweet nothings are all I want to hear from you,
Like the ones you used to whisper to me when you still felt challenged,
When you were trying to win me.

Well win me again, because I think you’re losing me somewhere.
I can’t stomach this feeling of being somewhere on your priorities list,
Wedged between the laundry and the dishes.

I hope you all see the hashtag
#WEplayfor24
Wear pink in her honor,
Put ribbons on your doors.

Yes people do die daily,
Life is fleeting this is true.
But to take away the best of us
...leaves you wondering what to do.