Concrete, Skinned Knees, and the Conclusion of Forever.
He grasped my fingers and I took a breath,
I counted to five and allowed my palms to sweat...
I stood, Converse clad feet turned inwards towards my opposite knees and thought about the
irony of plaid, I looked to rabbit ear shoelaces with tugs in the bows, and wondered...
how to make decisions.
Here we were and ankle length white skirts held the past in their hems, I fell beyond the
boat docks that became swallowed by the sea, once, twice, and someone told me, on a warm
afternoon in September where trees sheltered us from pouring rain, I spun on concrete as
if it couldn't break me....
I replied in a grinning whisper, words that danced through raindrops and giggled through
clouds,
“No, it shatters.”
I shook in the moment I remembered with my heart first and my mind later, because I loved
him so much on that night that the words didn't matter and I spun as April melted
inbetween us and sheets held the skin that told my secrets, the tattoo who heard
everything, and she heard me sigh, she heard me...
smile when I slept...
the sound of him, the days flooded, I fell...
on concrete...
and skinned my knee, I studied the shade of my bruises and the tiny drops of blood, I got
up and wiped the dirt off my hands, I studied my palms and my fingers and counted to
f i v e...
months later, I swallowed his voice, I attacked the shame I had in holding onto him for so
long, and I changed my shoes, untied the laces and zipped up boots, whose black leather
hugged my calves, whose toes were scuffed from all the miles I had walked, ran, and bumped
into him...
and the hems of my jeans, frayed, and stained with the dirt that settles on...
concrete...
rubbed up against his as I took his hand and looked down at the intricate patterns of the
way we held on...
I kissed him, then, when the rain stopped, and counted, as my teeth ran across the lips
that still tasted of his breath...
to one, and closed my eyes, to two, and opened them, and underneath the shadows that broke
the sky with my lashes, I reached...
forever.
Copyright © Jeanmarie Marchese | Year Posted 2007
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