Then the lips, the swords remind me of the pirate in our home. So too the market will mark me, candycane scents and the touch of apples on my tongue. Then too will the ice split open, spill forward a snowy night we could not make it back on open roads. I will press my face to the glass windowpane, pained, see the golden feet of fairytale furniture and lost speckled poneys with sad eyes. I will sit across from you when you mourn in the midnight street diner. I will mourn alone.
And there will be the fields, there will be the bluest walls of all, the cozy nook built by your hands. I will curl in the corner of the attic, push back at the boxes that stifle our tears. I will climb on top of the cabinet, curl my legs to my chest, sip the sour morning coffee and miss you, though beside you, all those days.
Before, I will rock myself to sleep on the wicker porch chair, turn my back to the gorges where grown and barefooted,you were lost. I will sip tea alone from a dark green gourd, will savor even every wind.
Maybe, at dusk, I will cross the feathery bridge, a small branch you hold to my knee. Or I will twist and turn in pine green sheets. I will sip the heart off a coffee cup, will saunter roads home. Two for one specials will catch my eye, sour skittles and cans of soda sipped dry, sat on their heads.
Navy hatchbacks will move inside of my breath. I will lock the door to my passenger seat, taste olives off of counters. Madeline will blink at me me, a stranger that haunts. I will hear his crackled voice on the radio and the chords will shock me; the hills will have grown around me, the mission's cupbards empty and hurting again.
I will edge towards wineries and raspy nights. I will write. I will tie my hair in curls and slip on white. No matter what, when I keep walking, I will turn my head around.
Still, I cannot imagine those white, chartered streets. I cannot remember even my last step, that swallowed goodbye. Only the trinkets that danced on our shelves, only the sunsets that slapped back at my regret.
