Maybe it was the way I stumbled upon you like the sides of curbs

Or the candy shoppe

Same in sweetness and hidden away

Tucked towards the underbelly of caked-boy gills

And the breadth of recollection.

Maybe it was the way I slipped as easily to your mind as pages

From a book too weighted

Gathering the tiny prisoners of solace thought

Like fairies with their clipped wings and split-ends,

To the eternity of admiration.

Maybe it was the way I felt rushes on my skin like the city in its heat

Or four o’clock

Beautifying its eyelids in cracks in the sidewalk

Where the wildflowers grow to thrive in their smallest victories

Or die at least trying.

Maybe it was the way I looked into my nail’s polish

Chipped and darkened and bit

And I saw there your insides,

Chiseled to their places by the ever-secure feeling

Of impossible permanence.

Maybe it was the way I ate slowly and consciously

So intensified by the knowing

Of eyes that rest when they are tired and so awake

To greet me, omnipotent with whiplash heart

And great incapability.

Maybe it wasn’t any of it at all

Rather, the tasteless summer’s hue

Settling to my walls and skin in timid pale

To score each other in easy tobacco and juices

and severe loving.

Either way, though,
It was always you.