Love is not blind, it is terrifying.

Somewhere between awake and asleep, I am a younger version of myself. It is summer, August. We have been piled in the back seat of my sister's Toyota for over an hour, our bronzed knees kissing one another like honeybees fluttering to perfumed petals. We have waited for this moment, it seems, our entire lives, and now that it's here, we wonder how long it will last.


It is quiet as we park the car and snake our way up the face of the mountain. We pause to sample the wild blueberries and to drink in the last of the sun's light before the dark blanket of night settles in. Tonight I can not feel my own legs beneath me as I inch myself toward the edge of the jagged crag, just your skin warm and salty in my palm.

We lay together on the rock's edge, our bodies settling, our limbs digging into the earth, rooting us to this place, this feeling.

"Why?" I ask, and you do not have to say "Why what?" because all there is is the beginning of the end, stretching infinitely before us like a strand of shiny pearl goodbyes.

You light a joint and drink heavily from its tip. I am lost in the signals that dance across your lips and I want nothing more at this moment than to taste you, to sample the flavors of your breath--campfire and clover.

Instead I take my own slow sips and hold the smoke inside my lungs for as long as I can, just to see what it's like to stop breathing. We rise together, two bluebirds hovering above the olive-green of life.

Now we are naked and tangled as we map out our futures in the electrical wires that hang above our heads: the roads we're sure to travel alone, and the one we know we we'll never brave together.

When we finally make love, I am afraid to stray from your gaze, because part of me knows that after tonight I will struggle to remember the exact color of your eyes. We are both trembling, but I can tell in the way that you say my name that it's not for the same reason.