the fall of my memories

I remember.
Somewhere, in the midst of a summer- I met a girl with purple pants that matched mine. I walked through dawn with her and brought her back to my purple room.

This was before I took that plane ride to lonely epiphanies in foreign accents. This was after I had started dating my unfinished business.

She never meant to meet me. I stripped her bare in public and got stuck on her skin.
Maybe I wished to becomelike her- more solid, darker- and went in search of beaches and consistency in the chaos of backpacks and train-rides.

This was the summer, the summer of love.
It lasted one week. The incubation period. The birth of a slogan: dare to feel.

dare to move in. to let in. to fall. to leave.

truth or dare? When I walked there was truth in my eyes. too much truth and sunlight, so I closed them. I opened them again in the dark. clothed, her clothed, us clothed. Why clothed?

Because we have sticky skin, molasses skin, burnt sugar under pecan pie skin, and you don't want your sheets wet. Your pink room. Your mother's house. Your island, the long one.

We are girls and not girls. We are pink and purple but mostly black and blue.

There are chances, you get them- life steals her metro card and lets you steal her from the world.
There are no plans, no huge meetings, no phone calls. You have the right lens for her photoshoot, she has the right lips for your mouth.

There are chances and there are decisions and you get them and you make them. I said I had to go. I called it creating the future.

Over dinner tonight, I was talking about what I want to do and a woman said "there is only now. there is no future, it doesn't exist." I knew it was smart and I'd heard it before but it still felt like a piece of ice down my shirt. And while I can handle it in summer, it is not summer.

Today it is the fall. The fall of my memories, the future of my past present. Time confuses me, and I let good things slip like ladybugs out of the cracks of my clasped hands.

Where are my wishes? Where is rusted bottle to polish?

Open sesame, open garlic, open everything bagel. these are the new york absurdisms. I wish to be in a cave of treasures. dens of thieves.

I stole her and time took me prisoner. When you shoplift you still return the item, and pay a fee.
You pay twice instead of once and are left with nothing.

once upon a time, life blinked and I got lucky and I stuttered and life caught me red-handed at the cookie jar and she sent me to bed without dinner.

That was not tonight. Tonight I ate my thank you's and pleases. but even with a full stomach of cranberries and pumpkins.even with entire farms under my skin- I still carry the memory of empty.

Sometimes, I see her in a new girl I meet, the spooky practical joke of lowlit bars and a few beers.

I once met a girl with purple pants and she wore purple pants and I took her to my purple room but then she had to change out of them and I decided the black looked nicer and moved out of my house and now I'm wearing pinstripes and my mom's friend is wearing pinstripes and my bedroom is black and silver and I'm pretty sure it's not that big of deal.

because not everything is meant to be
even when it feels like it is.