Yellow and orange and palm trees and midnight.
We missed the ocean, so that was the first place we went. I thought I'd lost you at one point. You swam out so far, oh God, I never ever want to feel like that ever again. My heart had gone a full circuit around my body: rising up to my throat, dropping down to my feet, then deciding it would join the Department of Panic and Anxiety Attacks in my brain. When you surfaced, sweet holy mother, I saw the face of God looking down upon me with favor. I hadn't lost you yet.
It was turquoise, a gradient really, mellowing into a dark rolling navy blue, heavy with stories, I supposed. Maybe that's why the ocean sank so deep into the earth: it held too many secrets. You were a little like that in your own way, though I never brought it up. I didn't want to upset you by telling you the gravity I thought you held. You were weird like that.
I always wanted, beforehand-in the past-years ago, to have someone to watch the sunset with, on the beach, preferably sitting on dead log with my feet buried in the sand. But you weren't really up for that. So instead I watched it alone, as you sat inside and watched TV, I watched it cast this orange curtain over everything; and as the sky turned pink, I pretended that thoughts of you would suffice for the distinct lack of you. It never did; they never do.
***
One night, I forget when exactly, you summoned me -- not called or snuck out, no, you summoned me (with hollers and beckons and a variety of very loud obnoxious car noises) -- to go out to a concert with you. I went for the good of my family; because I was sure that if I let you go on, the neighbors would've start throwing lit aerosol cans and left over food.
You drove like a madman and dragged me through the crowd by the wrist. If you had let go, I would've just sat there in the middle of everyone, possibly crying. Because it was a little before midnight and I was right about to go to bed when I was very rudely yanked out and sent into a moshpit of people only to be left behind. But you didn't. You made sure to be by me the entire time.
The wind was cold and the night was the darkest blue, but there were so many of us, and there was you. And the stage was a lighthouse and we were the sea, raging against it and rising to the occasion. But I missed the ocean, the real one, smelling of salt with the wind unobstructed wind sending shivers through us. The stars studding the sky like your sister's favorite black clutch.
You were this: a sea of people, smelling of sweat, rolling with energy, and shouting and jumping and lunging and throwing yourself in every direction. And I stood next to you, screaming and jumping and loving the show. How you lit up and thanked me when we lef t and asked me if I wanted to get some coffee first. And the way you were covered in other people's sweat and still managed to look amazing. You were the show.
***
I wish it never had to end, you and me, this, everything. The early sunrise and late sunsets and the way the air was always thick with heat or humidity. The streets would be littered with people in the most minimalist things and everyone in flip-flops, rich guys with their tops down and tops off. The faint layer of yellow on everything and the preciousness of late afternoons. How glorious were the nights, how cold and contrasting and taken were the nights!
And us in our world, apart from the multiverse of everyone else. We existed in a different space where nothing was oppressive and freedom was to be abused and as long as we could, we would. And we did. Everything, we did everything. We spent so many days by the water and I knew it was to make me happy. How you would run with me and how tired I would get. Still, I would try. Only because you wanted to. I would try anything for you.
But who would say that out loud.
I wish this would last forever, but sadly seasons never do.
day 18: summer
