After Thinking About You And Entropy For 20 Minutes

It is 11:53 pm and I’ve yet again come to the realization that you are too far away. Granted, you’ve been too far away for a while.

There are moments when I can feel the edges of my memories slowly blurring, like there’s a possibility that I won’t recognize your face the next time I see it.

Yeah, I know I can’t get rid of you that easily, and by the time my glass-encased messages reach you, you’ll be that much closer to home and we’ll pick up where we left off. Everything and nothing will have changed: voices bubbly from all the soda, we’ll skirt around live wires and laugh without cause. Shingles will dig into my thighs, and sitting on the slope of the roof will feel like falling, like slipping away (you’d think of it more like flying), but I won’t mind it; the two of us on top of the world like this tastes something like redemption.

With you, I feel unstoppable.

We are shaky ladders and the cracked slabs of cement they wobble upon; we are rushing, chaotic traffic and the sparkling asphalt beneath it. We are sparkly eyeshadow paired with dollar store candy, ball gowns stained with french fry grease, which is to say there would be a me without us, but God damn, it would be so boring.

And I know I talk about new beginnings a lot. Whenever something rattles my heart I tend to gut it, toss what I don’t need, and rearrange what’s left, but you are forever fixed there. If we’re being honest, the whole thing is yours to keep. Even when I set myself on fire, the flames can never touch you.

So to my overworked paragon, as much as I want you to let the wind carry you once in a while (lord knows you deserve it), I can’t wait for you to come home.