All of it, with bells and whistles
and guns blazing. You want to hit
the ground running. So much sound
and activity, so much moving about
and where does that leave me when
all I would like to do is sit somewhere
quiet with you on a sunny afternoon,
somewhere with a view of the
mountains or the ocean and the sky
resplendent and open above us? We
could talk or not talk. We could share
a pot of tea, a slice of cake. I’ll let you
have most of it. You don’t even need
to ask. We could watch a bird land,
alone, on a branch a few feet away,
wonder if it wonders what happened
to everyone else. Wonder when it
decided it was safe enough to rest.
You wanted the whole shebang,
all of it, and I said, what’s wrong
with half? You thought I was joking
and I pretended I was. We both
laughed. I told you about the time
I asked Gemini to write a poem
about you and it did a god-awful
job. I wanted it to capture the way
your voice collapses in on itself
when you’re holding back tears, how
you fold your socks, your nervous
smile. I wanted it to scour my
memory for all the little signs, the
hairline details I might have missed
myself. Those are the important
ones. The ones I need to hold on to
when everything gasps and fades
away. But maybe that’s expecting
too much. Or maybe I should
have been clearer. Maybe I should
have told it, the big things are
obvious. I don’t want the big things
anymore. So don’t give me bells
and whistles. Unblaze your guns.
When we hit the ground one day,
eyes wide and hand in hand, the
world will rush up to meet us and
I hope the last thing we do is run.
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Lovely 🫀
this is so beautiful, Marla! 💕