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.