𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

Before Xiomara came floating into my life in the form of notes and cupcakes and mystery, there was just me and my one and only constant: Ria. Whenever I was with her, I felt close to whole. I felt alive. She had deep-set eyes that lit up when I coaxed bright laughs out of her, and her gentle fingers loved to brush butterfly touches against my arm. She was not quite the sun, but more like the moon—wistful and filled with a quiet passion for the stars. She never stopped reaching for them. And one day, when she found the stars in herself, in the detailed lines of her charcoal sketches, she glowed from the inside out. She glowed and glowed and I couldn't stop looking at her. I've never met a person so radiant and ethereal.

Alegria "Ria" Ramos was my best friend. That's if we're examining only the pleasant, blue surface of this ocean. Say we dive a little deeper, cut past the sparkling waters of the surface and into murky depths. In its deep, dark waters where no one can breathe or even think of air, it would then shamefully reveal that I was in love with her—romantically. Completely. No room for doubt. She just simply curled up in my caffeinated heart that's so used to rushing from one love to the next. And she slowed it down.

But she also brought it to a stop.

Two summers ago, I was in love. I was drunk on the apricot scent of her shampoo lingering in her hair. I was sunburnt and laughing and melting into her words, the lightness in them.

We were at some beach, somewhere warm, sometime after the last day of our sophomore year of high school. Everything was a blur. But she—she was in clear, sharp focus. I had tunnel vision when it came to Ria.

It was late afternoon, and we were sprawled out on cheap beach towels, just out of reach of the frothing waves lapping at the shore. Ria was holding a short stick of charcoal between her fingers, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes down thoughtfully at a page in her sketchbook. I, on the other hand, pretended to type the bare bones of a new poem into my phone, but the dark swoop of her eyelashes in my periphery—damn. Her chocolate eyes with starlight shining behind them were even more bewitching. How could I focus on words when she was a living poem herself? I wouldn't be able to write up something as soft as the gentle curve of her jaw or as lovely as her full bottom lip when she caught it between her teeth.

It was then, as I was staring at her with my feelings written all over my face, when she looked up. A brief sound of surprise escaped her throat. But she caught my gaze determinedly. Held it.

I remember she stood up, adjusted the shoulder strap of her yellow bikini, her slender frame backlit by the sun, and said, "Let's do something."

We did something. And so, when I collapsed onto my bed that night with a smile large enough to swallow all the ghosts of sadness in me, I wrote. I immortalized our fleeting moments in love-soaked words. That was my first mistake.

strawberry ice cream
sticks to skin and
to sweet memories
still in the making,
humid air
pins cocoa-colored hair
to the back of your neck,
and i gently sweep a fistful
of those soft, dark strands
into my hand
and leave
soft trails of love
on that open expanse
of sweat-soaked sun-kissed
light-brown skin
and have you
whisper my name
while the doors
of our hearts
fall open
and the sun
melts gold
onto our cheekbones,
the fraying grass
tickles
our bare feet
still coarse with
the shore's sand,
and slow jazz
crackles from
the jukebox
of my mind
when you press
your lips
lazily
to mine
as if the summer
will last a lifetime