Big World
Our hands met in a mess of rust red. Pressing the clay into heart shapes as they reached into one and other for something to believe in. But our journey began before then, in fits and starts. In passing scenes of first act exposition. My wondering eyes and yours of gloss and experience on summer nights of velvet lines.
We would be forced together, it seems, by happenstance and wine, like a passing note on a harmonica that you hit just right for the first time. And we would become fluent in our own drunken language of 3 am metaphor and sadness.
So many times, my lips began the journey to yours before we crippled them with “what for’s”. But still we’d share winter constellations and whispers and moments so perfect. Me on my knees, drawing your portrait on the path with handfuls of sand.
Even half a world away, my drink still seemed to rearrange itself into letters spelling your name. And then you asked me.
If the world seemed smaller.
And my mind was.
And my hands followed suit.
And then my frame began it’s descent.
But my arms stayed the same length. Just long enough to hold you.
I’d written the answer on the inside of my forearms, so I could press them to your body when I held you.
And my own joy of words, that only you would understand, I scrawled on my palms to serve as affirmations to myself when I covered my eyes to see no evil. Words like:
Majestic.
Precise.
Serendipitous.
And these words sent their letters to my mouth, asserting themselves in phrases like:
It’s a big beautiful world.
It is a big beautiful world.
And still we dance around our imaginary fire of ‘not good enough for you’ like a binary star. Beautiful but incomplete.
So, I loosened my tongue with women and foresight and raced the blood from my eyes to my core and pealed back my layers, until I could find the answers written in God on the insides of your forearms.
And now I know the answer to your question about the big, beautiful world.
And I don’t mind telling you.
I.
Don’t.
Mind.
Strong, stunning woman with hands covered in soil from the roots of the world she tugs on…
It is in your stride. Leaving wakes of timelessness behind you.
You seldom see, dear one, that you are the world. Not the child. And if I ever stoop to lift you, it is only due to the mountain you’ve erected beneath me, so that I can always see you. Across any distance.
You are reserved for made up words.
The story of your life is written on pages of gold.
I breathe honestly into the wind in hopes that it will touch your face somehow far away.
Tonight, I write by moonlight. My fifth glass of port wine is by my side, turning my blood to something sweet. I have no time for less.
I would whisk you away with me, but you are where you need to be and I haven’t found that yet.
But if you ever want to go, I would take you and show you the whole strange world that I see now.
No, my heart.
The world looks bigger.