Those times we stumbled there that wonderful place with cheap pasta and that
carrot cake you liked so much still it makes my heart thump remembering your eyes
Oh, how they would twinkle and crease as you ate that cake — slow at first, then all at
once because you never were good at waiting
I wonder will I ever eat a slice of carrot cake again, or smell an orange
Without you coming back to me as real as that rainy day in April
We were so stupid, weren’t we? Oh, but wasn’t it real?
When I put my head on your chest and our breaths fell into a pattern and I could
hear my heart thumping inside my ribs how it slipped into a familiar rhythm
And followed your heart I would have followed you anywhere (back then, and
even now…)
When you kissed my forehead against soft slow fall of early April rain, and traced
infinity on my shoulder and
you smiled at me a certain way and for some stupid reason
the sun caught your eye at such a specific angle
And I am afraid if I am being honest, I think about those other times when you
let me believe that maybe there was something there those times you held
onto me outside petrol stations outside gardens and my front porch
cars sped by traffic lights turned green and leaves fell in flurries and
still there we were standing amidst all that two slow dancers remember
that Mitski song
How she goes: It would be a hundred times easier if we were younger
to think that we could stay the same, but we are two slow dancers
I thought of us then two slow dancers
Stumbling to soft melodies of a song we did not know (how could we?)
And still, there we were our bodies clumsy and chaotic like baby horses
Or lambs have you seen how they nuzzle their noses into each other when they get cold
I thought of us then huddled up that day against a world that was cold and barren and
still I held onto you at times, I felt it mattered; as if it was the only
thing that mattered