I wore a black sundress. You wore baggy shorts held up at the waist with a worn leather belt. You had lost so much weight during the months you spent miles and memories away in the sunshine state and I wasn't sure who you were anymore.

Your car smelled like melted crayons in the summer heat. I folded myself into the passenger seat next to you and from a dog-eared book, read poetry aloud as we drove. You treated each ending with a silence that I had, at some point, thought profound.

You called me beautiful. I wanted to shake you, to point out my secret imperfections, to say "look at my crooked teeth that will never fit together like we do when you tuck my body into the curve of yours as we sleep."

Mostly though, I wanted to explain to you that poetry is nothing but words strung together, meaningless until breath is breathed into them and a heartbeat begins.