Marigold

This was the first time I really met you and it struck me as odd that I never made a point to mention that there were certain types of drugs that always found a way to circumvent my desire. You claimed your religious mantra read, always welcome free substances with both palms open, and I trusted you enough to adopt your practice for a day.

I was most keen on, most used to, staying medicated in a way that made me volatile; devoted to the sensation of feeling both overly alive and on the brink of death, most often measured by how quickly my heart twitched within its cavity. But you gifted me a handful of dosed earth as you leaned into my clavicle, an elementary game of telephone; I barely made out the silhouette of your words, chew, quickly, swallow. My first impression of you fell parallel to my perceptions; people born in water signs always seemed costumed in benevolence, perhaps in part to camouflage the danger.

I counted twenty seven marigolds congregating at the sock fences of my calves before I realized I was high; and while I expected apprehension to walk in next, what I was introduced to instead, was closeness. I looked at you and we looked at the pear trees climbing around us, the moon murmuring to the sun, the dirt caked in the creases of our lifelines, had you ever noticed how romantic it was the way the soil found retirement within the spaces of our fingers? It was the way some people radiated gold and some people reflected yellow and how the difference was obvious yet hard to describe. I thought about how you sparkled at the same time I said everything was finite and you called me an optimist, how lucky you are to believe that even the best things should end.