marie, yannic, and I

sit on the sidewalk curb

eating oranges and drinking yogurt

and talking about what the versions of us

two years ago would have done had they known

what they were about to embark on. 

yannic smokes a cigarette. then after marie asks if

we are not going back to class, and it becomes apparent in fact

that none of us will, he smokes another. marie says certainly

the biggest thing she has gotten from this is language skills,

are language skills soft or hard? none of us know.

maybe hard I say. yannic says her German is very good so sweetly,

his blue eyes twinkling. the madrid sun has tempered and in this shade

everything is orange like the skins marie piles into her empty yogurt cup. 

the moment is perfect. recharges me like a battery. 

makes me remember what it is that I want to live for:

tiny moments like this, the small teaspoon on my lips, 

yannic's hand cupping the butt as he lights it up again and the smell

wafts over me in the wind, and marie places her spoon directly on the concrete

without a second thought. it is a spring moment tinged with summer,

anything is possible and the smallest things are dangerously sweet

something one would give their life for over and over again

never getting anywhere, but never needing to.

I don't know anything

i.

I don't know anything

this is the only thing I know

the only thing that is quite clear to me.

ii.

I am sick of perfection.

Let me be reckless. Let me be foolish.

Let me be irresponsible.

I spend most of my time crying,

anyway.

iii.

Things I wish for:

to wake up and feel rested

to wake up not anxious not worrying if I should go back to sleep

the intimacy of a watch on the bedside table without the pain

comfort

to finish my thesis

to not be so tired

to know what to do

vi.

life perhaps

is a constant undoing

of past illusions.

(and what is built up

in their place?)

ode to the French boy to whom I did not speak

oh French boy

you are so beautiful

I truly thought I might die

"He is so cute I could literally die"

I type in my notes app

(and for all intents and purposes,

for all intensive purposes: I

mean it. I do not exaggerate).

Thrown to me, a pure product of

happenstance, and I so in love with you

a month ago on the metro, eyes roving

your sweatshirt and your knit cap, 

drinking you in, you were so beautiful to me even then

served up to me again today by so many overlapping moments of chance

and then you order the same sandwich as me

and I can not believe my luck

an opening, to say something, anything

it's good no? but I shy away, I always shy away

(oh god you are so beautiful, too beautiful, and nervous

when you sense me in my noticing, I can tell)

but you see me register that you have repeated my order

and you smile and inside, everything I have ever known

sets on fire.

Perhaps that is enough.

On the metro

The little girl does not want to sit

She holds her father’s hand

Her own clasped around the handle of her pink umbrella

She makes faces, pretty, ugly

To others, to herself

He is telling her things

Speaking to her as though she is an adult

(Emory says he likes this,

You say you love it,

Reflecting later on the escalator

At your station, going up)

And he is cautioning her about the day

She ran down the block and fell

You still have a bruise he says

Touches it on her temple

You can’t see it so clearly

But sometimes

Did I cry a lot she asks

He says I can’t remember

You did cry though

And she nods

Trusting him

To tell her the truth

Too young to remember everything

She wants to get off a stop early

But he says the next one is closer

So we’ll wait okay?

She says nothing

Come come he says

We will go wait by the door

She follows slow and silent

I see them pass the window

The top of her curls as

They amble down the platform

She drags her umbrella

As they pass the door

Scaled to her size

Hitting her chest probably 

Where Emory’s large one 

Hits his

I hold tightly in my fist

To their existence

Her curls tight and bouncing

They are a duo

And I remember my own palm

In that of my fathers

Our skin tones reversed

And I long for a child

To hug

To be friends with

And talk together

Know that we are duo

With which to see 

And share 

And discuss

The world