When anticipation planted secrets in the cracks of sidewalks,
I picked them like the peach begonias in your hair
and wrapped them in my mouth to whisper into yours later.
I bore myself into the minefield of red flags, armored with rose-tinted glasses
and deaf to the screams of my exploding friends,
pretending kisses are supposed to taste like pure vanilla extract.
Scattered alleyways enclosed the warmth of our skin straining to meet
and as a tremendous lurking shadow flickered between your every word,
I became drunk on the insidiously saccharine illusion of what could be us.
Spilling my knowledge of how to be human onto the floor, through the boards,
staining the concrete--anticipation treated me as the sidewalk and taught
how not to be the paralytic offering to Cupid's next curb stomp.
