I.
It is so simple.
Tuesday atmosphere bleeding
autumn rain down windowpanes,
the descent of fragile hopes
and hands intertwined a little
too tight for wondering.


II.
We are here; hazy within
the iridescent walls of my childhood home.
We slow dance to the fading refrigerator light,
our laughter reverberating down the stairs
I fell down when I was in kindergarten
and afraid of boys with loud voices.


III.
It is more complicated than they think.
We scour home decor magazines,
pointing at flattened apartment windows
overlooking the bustle of city chaos.
A young couple walks across the page
and into a dusk-painted room,
faces exuberant in the sunlight
of their newborn lives.
One day, we will be just like them, you tell me.
I almost forget that I have yet to turn
seventeen.


IV.
In my head, there is nothing wrong
with designing the future,
sketching myself into false realities
where I feel safe falling asleep
in someone else’s arms.
I have written myself within the spaces
of unpromised decades,
and I paint your hands, the ridges--
the crevices in which I have placed
an abundance of gemstone promises
that do not shatter in the light of something real.



V.
We are young
but I love you.
To the rest of the world, we are teenagers
clutching each other’s spines in grass fields
when we cannot even comprehend
what we are praying for.
Hold me.
I love you.
I cannot promise this enough.