Once was enough.
It felt like an aught 8 put in my gut when I saw you. They say you see white when you succumb to a peaceful rest, red, when death comes of sin. I stood stricken with a prayer I had implored God to answer a few nights before;
Please God, send me a miracle.
My spirit shook like a crimson ribbon in the wind. I blinked hard, twice. I rubbed my eyes with the balls of fists. I smiled and willed my legs to move to you.
Walking towards you, I felt a left behind emotion rumble awake. I realized I was only five blocks from where I left it sleeping. Funny how I think I can leave an emotion in a physical space, but the spirit can be moved and inherited by place, a moment. Fate curses the moment when our eyes met. Fate stomps his webbed feet in horrific surprise of the miracle I asked for. Walking towards you… I began to gain strength.
From the second we hugged and smiled and your cheeks turned the color I'm writing about, until now, I have exhausted fewer heavy sighs while discovering the dusty stairs of recovery. I know it isn't all about you. I also know that you are so delicate and have never had a man arrange flower petals around your belly button. Fate remains, stomping his webbed feet in surprise.
The weeks that have passed resolved little of the quotient. I listen to crickets every night as I turn and tuck myself into the bed. I clench the corners of my pillowcase and try to think of nothing, until I drift into crazy dreams. Fate taps me with an ironic switch to shock me out of sleep. It was revenge for how we shocked he. Despite the brink of the unknown we ponder, it is easy and comfortable with you.
I will not mention the unmentionable. I am growing like tomatoes in August.
During the brief moments I remember to try to remember, I recall your smell. As easy to leave an emotion in a place, it also remains in scent. Those summer days of our budding youth, when we would sneak away to the urban parks under the streetlights and get soaked by the sprinklers, we were whole. We would kiss our wet lips, hug and laugh, and you smelled.
You smelled like clover.