August

We met by the ocean. The more I think about that, the more it makes sense. The waves were lapping way up to your knees, slicking jean and skin together, but you didn’t mind. You were beaming for all the world, but you were alone with the white horses. I watched you for a while, happy in your happiness. I watched as you danced with the currents and glided with the undertows as the tide pulled you further down the shore. And then the sun set, splashing its golds and pinks and ambers into your beloved blues and greens, and you laughed and laughed and laughed until the starts came out and twinkled along with you. I asked what you were laughing for and you replied “beauty”. I saw the way your eyes sparkled with the waves and the way your hair fell around your face, shifting slightly in the cool breeze and the way your face was turned to the sky to drink in the universe and I thought, yes. That’s what it is. Beauty. I asked if you wanted to get coffee, and you turned to me and nodded, then turned back to the glimmering azure. But in that small moment, you didn’t look at me. You looked at the way the stars reflected in my eyes and the way the light from the waves played off my cheeks and the way the breeze tinted my nose and cheeks pink. I asked you to look at me again, and you did, but not at me. I don’t think you ever have. At the diner I sat by the heater with my mug between cupped hands, trying to warm up and dry off, whilst you sat by the window, coffee forgotten as you gazed out until sunrise, by which time I’d fallen asleep, so you carried me home because a few cornflowers had caught in my hair, and their pigment reminded you of the ocean. On the many nights we’ve spent tangled comfortably in bed, you didn’t look at me, or what we’d done, but up, out the window and away with the spinning planets and shooting comets. When we’d go for long walks in the autumn, your hands were always stuffed full with acorns and conkers and auburn leaves, but never with my own hands, as I so often wished they were. I used to write you notes and fashion them into airplanes with your lap as their destination, and you’d smile as you opened them, but not at the words that I’d written, instead at the stories that the paper told you of the tree it used to be. If you ever held my hand, it was so that our shadows looked nicer strewn across the pavement. If you ever hugged me, it was so you could get a better look at the view over my shoulder. If we ever kissed, and we did once, one glorious once, it was so that you could see if you could recreate what you felt for the world with just physical actions.

You couldn’t.

But I never minded any of that. Because seeing you in love with the world was a lot more beautiful than seeing you in love with me. Or at least, that’s how I imagine it.