seams and stitching ♡ published

THE FIRST TIME THEY SAID HELLO - PART I

the first time they said hello,
he was a cloud of marijuana
hazing up the room in a baseball cap
and baggy clothes he still wears
to this day. the first time
they said hello, his breath
was polluted with liquor and smoke,
smoggy words falling carelessly from his thin-lipped mouth
full of straight, porcelain white teeth.
she still remembers the bright blue eyes somehow solidifying
in the blur of motion and light,
and no, she did not fall in love with him then, with his blue eyes
raking down her form for a
glimpse of exposed skin,
and the way his shirt hung off his chest like a passive aggressive
apology. she saw him like a
hazy cloud of marijuana, light streaming through him
as they pulled in and out
of the music like ocean currents
lost on land. he said,
"yo, ma, what's good?"
breaking his neck for one more
glimpse at the seat of her jeans
and that was the first time they said
hello, in the primrose nightclub,
ignorant of the destruction
laying behind them, within them,
tangled up between them, hanging
in the air like a cloud of regret
of the future. no, he did not
love her then, with her mouth
painted deep red and curly hair pinned back in a gelled-up bun,
tan skin glowing in the 90's lights,
decked out in black jeans and a
stripped shirt laced up the front,
high cheekbones and brown moon-eyes, staring him down
like she wasn't quite sure he actually existed. she didn't even
form words, she just scoffed, and he
did not know that the five foot four
Latina beauty swaying rhythmically
beside him would love him,
love him again and again and again
and then not, like primroses
rolled in joints and smoked into
perfume highs. he did not know he
would love her, knot his existence in hers in a pitiful attempt
to prove to her that yes, he was real,
as real as the pain
cramping my hands as i repeat
this image of their primroses
plucked of all their petals,
again and again and again as they
knot themselves together in my stomach and father's
ocean blue eyes layer over the dark moonlight of mother's,
destruction in my blood because they loved and then
did not love, their love's existence
a mere hazy cloud of primrose-hued memory and passive aggressive
apologies and i, the beam of light
poking holes in their story.
it's tattooed to my tongue, painted on my lips, hanging
off my body like a shattered past,
the first time they said hello,
and to this day she can remember
the exact way his eyes solidified
in the blur, and he still wears that
oversized outfit, and despite the fact
that they left that nightclub
more than a decade ago,
they are still ocean currents lost on land, still primroses
plucked of all their petals, and they
are still ignorant of the destruction
knotted in the stomach
of their joint existence.