I struggle to lay everything I feel on the table
so I often opt for the abstract.
I choose the songs, the golden moments
of laughter in parked cars outside coffee shops.
I choose the hand squeezes during dinner prayers,
proofreading your papers,
looking for baseball cards at Target.
“These things, they take time”
echoes from the speaker on my work station.
Another abstract: A lyric,
forever laced with you and with me.
From a song about growing up
about hanging on
and a love drunk original reason.
I hear it, and I remember the night
we sat in your driveway, staring at stars.
We were eighteen. I was thrilled by the notion
that I had everything to learn about you,
that we were two characters in a story
worthy of writing.
Eighteen. Then we turned nineteen.
We left behind summer days,
watched them drift into fall, and
we realized we didn’t have it all figured out.
But we laughed, I cried,
we walked and you grabbed my hand
and we made the choice
to hang on for the ride.
I hear that song, and my mind turns
to a supercut of the past 4 years.
Those abstract moments turn
into trust, into safety, memory,
laughter, love.
Into smirks from across the room
and saved seats at every table.
I hear it, and I remember my original reason:
You wanted to know my heart.
I wanted to know yours.
And these things, darling,
they take time.
And it’s beautiful.
Excelsior 