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» immortals

you are immortalized now.

engraved in the lines around my eyes,
the smile you never fail to bring out,
presented to me like a gift -
it would be so easy to just
send a picture to you, start a conversation,
pull back up the days when
the world was painted in grey skies and wet grass,
and you told me things
i should have never taken so - so romantically -
my eyes wander towards you;
do you know i am asking if we are still friends?
there's a road and masks and several layers of pasts
in front of it and in the space between you and me
you are immortalized.

presented in the crook in my elbow,
you are hidden -
where else would my fifth grade memories lie?
my fingers, possibly, lead on the sides
from my pencil & eraser shavings on my papers
you brush past me, drop a paper on my desk,
sharpen a pencil to hand me a drawing
i turn it over, grin -
brush the paper into my elbow and keep it
tucked in the cross of my arms
you're always one for giving gifts and i
have nothing but flourished words in return.
here is the only gift i can give to you -
immortality like the ones we read in stories

sealed in the flexed foot in pique,
the breath i take to rise on pointe,
you sit. if i just knew where you were,
if we had seen each other in real life -
we could have, i'm sure you know
( what are we, twenty minutes away? )
- if i knew you, i would be twirling you around,
teach you how to dance. you sing and
doodle and write with the most colorful paints
and the last thing until you've collected it all
is dance. i can teach you that.

written in the lines on my palm
that contract to hold a pencil or type these words -
you do these things too. and you make
such beautiful things, it seems so unbelievable
that we are and that you are and that
it's been so little time and that we are so close
and i see your art before you publish it and
that somehow your comfort extends past the
country. do you know the impact you've made
in people who are more than me?

clutched in the spaces between my fingertips,
outstretched until the very end, you're
just out of my reach.
to catch you would be something i'd
cherish for the rest of my life but would it
be worth it to take the risk?
if it means losing the hours i spend laughing with you
and the imaginary hugs i think i can feel from the country above
i don't think i will. i don't
want it to be so awkward with you
it's never been like that with us and
i don't want to start now.

it's a way, you see -
in the bounce of my hair and the curve of my spine
my favorite memories, my most conflicted people,
those who have brought me so much happiness and
yet so much worryfearangerhope - hope is a dangerous
thing to have and i will keep gathering it around me -

they're a part of me now.
you're a part of me. 

( 2.22 )