bARTknows

Your hazel eyes are beautiful. The temperature must be hundreds of degrees in this hot, Texas Sun. The blacktop smells like tar and granite. I should eat my popsicle quickly, but I refuse. When I finish, you will leave. You laugh when I glance at the melting blue, white, and red layers. A single juicy bead traces a path of purple along my wrist. I laugh back and lick it clean. We're not talking but I hear what you say through your eyes and your smile. It brings me back to the moment on the bus when I met your lips and my heart leapt out the window.

This feeling is so foreign, yet so pleasant. My heart's never felt this ravenous expansion of emotion. It pulls gently at first, lifting me into the clouds where I can taste the rays of golden sunlight that pour from your head and flow across the horizon—vibrant, the muted shades of orange and fire kiss the glowing strands. You speak. Your words pull sharply, nurturing the devouring pleasure churning deep within my chest. Our young minds are so naive. We don't even know ourselves, just that we are, and we are together now.

We meet on the sidewalk and share the icey popsicles for an eternity. I fall asleep with you in mind. I awaken and it isn't long before you sit quietly observing all my thoughts. With you, I can't tell if I am dreaming in daylight. I've lost myself another world where the summer sunlight sprouts yellow sunflowers from your hair. Our eyes meet. Thoughts slip quietly away and my mind goes blank. My hallucinations dissolve into the world around us. You smile and take a bite of the red ice before it melts.

Savoring our conversation, we giggle coyly—unadorned with gifts beyond ourselves. This very moment is the only thing we offer one another. I want this gazing, everlasting moment to last forever. I want your glance be my ocean and your breath the wind with which I sail into eternity. I want to protect us from the truth of what is real. From our parents, friends, the voices in our minds.

They do not lie. The future is long beyond my grasp and I know that you will leave. But only after this sweetened colored ice has melted into our mouths, into us. This is what they promised us, and they never lie. I know they'll make us leave—tear us apart forever. They won't win as long as it is in our hands and not our hearts, our future trapped inside—If only it were winter.

Your smile never fades. The last ice crystal folds its arms and releases its grip. Our eyes follow the weeping dew drop, now an incandescent violet sphere. It leaps to my hand. Nervous and hesitant, I avoid its kiss with my fingertips. I refuse to lick it off my skin. It trails down my arm and I let it go.

I refuse the last sweet taste of the melted ice and you leave anyway. The pale violet drop becomes black and tiny, then hits the map as a meteor would, marking your destination with these words: Seguin, Texas.

Outside it's winter again, and I remember what it's like to fall in love. Pausing, I sigh and wonder if Seguin—the dot on the map—is just ink on a page. It's only because I am not there.