i could sit at the edge of my bed and stare at your face until every outside noise drowned out to an ah , hum huuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

i could leave my body and sit still with you. for forever, if anyone would let me when we were small and the room we shared was larger than the entire world we sat crossed and crossed over and under each other/ where wooden floor boards warmed under legs: skinny, and swollen and blueberry bruised/ all twenty inches long and sprawling/ we were lying, our eyes fixed to the ceiling fans spinning/ we were spiders we were lemon drops falling off the sun. when you were mine and i was yours and everything that came after was easy/ when we’d sit on the floor and for hours, hours/ for what could have just as easily been all of fifteen minutes/ i’d tell you the story of us/ i’d tell you of everything outside the closed door of our shared room before it came and swept you off your feet/ i’d spent summers inventing great big wide worlds where you reigned like god over everything and everyone/ where nothing ever hurt you and the world was yours to adore/ where i had you and you had me and everything after was easy/ our legs have grown we do not live in the houses we built inside of each other anymore but here is the story as i know it so far: a story of summer nights in the overgrown backyard, with weeds in our teeth and raspberry bush scars and Jars full of fireflies and and Screaming ghost in the graveyard and mouths full of gummy bears and candied rainbow christmas lights and spilling a bottle of red wine all over the kitchen tablecloth and we’re staining it to the most delicious shade of pink and we’re calling that color more sacred than god and we’re spraying the hose on full blast into each others open mouths and we’re falling heavy to sleep forehead to forehead, pouting lips parted for shallow breaths on the dogs heaving belly and he is good, he never moves when he’s trying to hold us up and we are still trying to teach him that it is okay to swim and we are orange peeling smiles, we are plum stained fingertips we are sliced feet from trying to walk in mom’s highest heels we are broken bikes, with the tires still spinnin, we are bloody knees, we are screaming giggle fits we are high up in the pine tree branches, crawling as close as we can to heaven and the tree has a door, where the old man two doors down took a chainsaw to the side so it was easier for our small bodies to slip inside and we’d be under the skirt of the pines, in the tree we called a home that offered a not so subtle reminder of our size. how small we were in the sight of all things breathing and alive, and i’d climb a branch higher than you and you another to prove your point until it was just us, a quick witted verse among the song of the breeze in the sky. you were mine and i was yours and maybe it can take up our entire world just a minute longer.