Yellow lemon shirt, bright purple shorts
You grabbed the end of my salmon colored sweater
“I like the texture. I have this thing with textures."
You said to me, our clean swift tanned feet
Escorting us to the city dwelled beach
You wanted to surround me with the same familiarity
You had practiced so many times before
But I was
So new, so fresh, so unknown.

I remember you sat on the bus, and popped open a beer
Too nervous to sit next to me, I kept my cat eye sunglasses--
On all day, your circular RayBans reflecting only me.

Remember the first time you walked into the room
Your longboard in your arms
Swan, brooding in black glamour, your eyes and chest
Seemed so interesting, to little ole me
But you jump swiftly into roof top pools
Budding and swimming, disappearing
Text me only to update me
Pint of Jim Beam, I knew I could keep up with you
I thought maybe you could too.

Theres something about reflecting back on this time
The innocence, nostalgia of it
That fills my bones up with summer soaked skin
Margaritas in the sunshine
As you doted on me through a cellphone
FaceTime became our middle name
As you reached from afar,
Promises we could have written into the sand
Only to watch the wind blow them all away.

Fast forward to walking down the street, arm in arm
You still extend to me sometimes
It feels like we have arrived on different planets
When we choose not to now.
Wings and outstretched newness remaining
Crying under your strong limbs
My heels make me an Amazonian Princess
You chose to not invite me tonight
I guess I don’t blame you
As you walk away from the bar,
I’ll always be eons and centuries far
Away from what we hoped we could be.
Kisses that grew with intensity and longing
Ducks and swans eating eggs and pie
Such contentment, falling asleep nestled like little dolls
You wanted
I wanted
We wanted
We hoped
For this to be
It.

Sweeping into our childhoods
Our families, the cities we thrived in
They’re so different, we couldn’t be more different
We ate sandwiches and should have held hands under the table
Like we do now at times at late night diners
Our loneliness and longing
We reinvent with time and poisonous bottles.

You said the other day
That my poetry feels like a story now
But I teach a lesson with each?
Green leaves edging up the length of your legs,
Our mamas so eloquently speak the truth
Your spine, remember all the times
You professed your love?
As I watched with careful eyes
Running away a little at a time.

We walked to the movies together
Lips smudged in deep red
I remember turning to you afterwards
"I love the fact that a WOMAN edited that!!"
The look of wonder in your eyes
Has kept me here
Bopping and bebopping
All along.

Fire hair, unicorn woman
Other men and women dance next to you
But your eyes shift away
Looking into my face
But you turn to go
Once you see I was never yours to keep.

Unbuttoning, dancing into the wee hours of the night
Across gallery openings
Crowded rooms
The windows of buses
Brown hazel eyes that look like mossy green forests
In the natural sunlight
Delicate but hard rugged skin
Tattoos that made sense under the ink of a gun
Spiky hair that can’t decide which way to sit
Chiseled features, and those lips I’ll always miss a bit
Strength personified by angels sewn into skin
A stature often teased but so mobile, grounded, and free
And lastly the beating entity in your chest full of carefree
Amorous beginnings and endings, humors manners
Compiled into the nymph who ran away with my heart in May
And I lament, "Will I forever be chasing pixie dust?"

I love you.
So much.
I do.
You love me.
You do.
So much.

But I watch you sprinkle the environment
The atmosphere,
Swans biting and swirling around it all
Directing and flying into the shining sky
A beacon of tomorrow and the tomorrows to come
As we inch forward and inch back
Like wild hunters on the loose
With your kindness, your sincere interest
Wonder
You always understood me.

I don't have the answers
I don't know how to keep you
I don't know how to reinvent what we were
As our bodies demand and beg for love
But we
But you
But I,
Insert the perfect answer here.

I knew I always would—
Drifting further and further away with each day
Sometimes I long for you to rush
Through the rip tides and muddy waters
Of the deepest ocean
To rise on the other side
Gasping for air, fingers reaching
As if escaping from a pirouette
I long to encircle it all in frothy candy canes
Unicorn blood stained new found friendship
But we send pics, conveying how removed we are
Blowing out every single candle.

I thought I would have all the proper words
That I could articulate so simply
So simply and with lightness
But you turn 24 in 3 minutes.

I guess I imagined all of this differently
Entangling myself in all of the vines of my words
My thoughts, my fears, my joy
I gave them away to you like little trinkets
A book of poetry, sums up everything we were
But if I compiled it all
It would take me years.
Everything we are
As I curl with love into who I am
As I explode with prophetic cinematic splatter paint
As the ripest orange zests and still professes
Just like we did that warm fall Missouri wedding day.

Thank you.
Thank you for the stories to share
For unknowingly becoming a muse
In my elfin ear.

I placed a sunshine emoji next to your name
In my cellphone
Last week
Because thats what you are
Thats what you will always be
No matter how many times our hands reach
Only to fall back to our sides
As we remember and dote on the time
I told you I was a Southern Woman
And you chased me down the street
Inked yourself with the metaphoric image of me
I wave farewell to it all--
As I held you so dearly in the palm of my hand
Little porcelain
Little porcelain

Baby.
Doll.

Happy Birthday Zak.