I am trying to remember these days. The past two weeks blend into few moments, not dim but dry eyed, wide eyed wonder and a type of tip-toeing I have never before practiced. When I close my eyes, I see straw. I see the hottest skies, wet mud, bruised eyebrows, plastic bottles and the sheen of chip bags inside out. Those were the only leaves flying in the winds.

Why there was no romance in those mountains. Beautiful, yes, but empty of promise, and empty of angels too. Places where coffee is grown but cannot be bought; a river runs through but cannot be fished; rains fall fast but can harvest no more than a single, pricey spice.

In this, my worries seem but small and somewhat solvable. All sprouting from too many choices, too many possibilities that compete in my head, my hands. It is not that I have chosen wrong in life, but simply that I have not chosen.

While, from afar, choices seem to pave roads or impede them, maybe--and I should know best--we cannot choose what is best or better. It is chosen for us in small salutes, never in promise but instead strong actions that lead to sounder sleep. Yes, to find somewhere a sweet, sweatless sleep is all to hope for, when biggest hopes cannot be fulfilled, but desire too cannot be buried. An inbetween of peace.

Bald, sugar

I know if you were here beside me, we'd drink coffee with bald sugar sticks at its bottom. Days would pass idly and sat by the sea. I would read my book in hammocks while you fried fish and laughed at skiddish iguanas jangled on a hot tin roof.

Waking in Guatemala, on my birthday is pleasant and coffee scented. At 5 AM I was ready to press a cup to my lips, to call back memories we had no chance to make. I want to see the mountains that you too ached to archive in your laminates and dream photography, no roses grown here but instead great, green wings. I want you to smile upon me, not only inside of me, to practice the words I am only now bringing to my lips.

Still, I believe (although I do not know what I believe) that you have brought me here. And I imagine it another way, where you spice empanadas and link my arm into your own. I am glad I am here, and glad I am here for you, as a part of you, because my own green wings are those of rolling Rs, planted, harvested by your devotion.