love, s (the second one)

dear r,

you are an artist.

you paint the skies with your smile, and when i think of you, i think of strawberry pocky sticks and sticky creamsicle fingers— and i remember, faintly, of when we used to sit directly across from each other like a therapist and a patient (though i'd like to think that you were the patient, and that it was my job to understand you). the moments i remember the most are the ones when i finally realized what the love songs were talking about, when they sang about running fingers through hair (you always had the most beautiful hair, soft and dark, and it curled at the nape of your neck). your hands, they were artist's hands, but they handled fragile pieces of machinery, fitting gears onto axles and axles onto miniature cars that ran as far as they could (there's a metaphor somewhere in there that i wish i could still talk to you about). 

by god, i knew you never were an artist, you said so yourself, but the rush of color in your skin and the fluffy down in your voice was the kind of art that made me want to break into the louvre and smash all the frames, tear down all the walls, just so they could walk free like you.

i don't remember much anymore, and sometimes the memory of a loss of a memory makes me cry; because i wish i could say that i remember everything, but i don't. instead, i only remember the feeling of laughter bubbling in my throat and coming up for air, hysteria layered on hysteria layered on shades of dark blue wood and splintered benches.

i still have the photos i've taken of you, but when i don't see them, i can't imagine what your face looks like. i don't have any videos, so i don't remember the sound of your voice, either. it's been a few years, and i wonder how you are— if you still like creamsicles as much as you did before, if your little brother is taller than you now, or if that lemon tree still grows in your backyard. 

i have so many questions for you, but i'll settle for this one.

do you still love strawberry pocky sticks? or is it chocolate now?

s