circa 1212

I think of you when I’m driving.

when I clamber into shopping carts.

when my dreams take me (without consent) to pavilions in the mountains.

when the sun is taking its leave and the sky holds that modest mix of purple and blue you love[d] so much.

when songs come on that make everyone smile and sigh and make me search for the nearest cavern to bury my escaping brain into.

on nights that are too cold for my bare shoulders, and so I become numb. Numb from the cold or from the nerves I don’t know.

But my whole body is shaking as we lay on the concrete and I can’t believe that I exist in this moment, looking up at the stars, and I really should have worn a jacket cause it’s fucking cold but I have a feeling that it could be one hundred degrees and my hands would still be shaking because I know how this early morning ends and I told myself I was ready but now I can’t even feel my fingertips and I want it to be perfect but you and I are far from it. And I can picture those last thirty seconds in my mind as easily as snapping my fingers— the perfume I had on. The boots I was wearing. The look on your face. The feeling somewhere between my heart and stomach when…

I think of you when Florida’s winter finally rolls around and I venture out into the night without a jacket, snapping fingers that have no feeling left in them.