Sunset

I saw a sunset that looked like you today.

All glimmer and gold on one side

And glum grey on the other.

I wanted to reach up and wrap my fingers around those clouds.

Wrap my fingers and pull myself up

So I could sleep on your soft white underbelly.

The horizon between grey glum

And glimmer gold.

I wanted to reach across the divide of your clavicle

And hang onto your sides

To keep you from falling apart.

With these too small hands of mine

I would press you together

To keep the little things of you

Like the way you eat your whipped cream

Or the way you sort your laundry

From slipping through the cracks.

The little things that make me lick my lips and smile.

I would hold you together so you wouldn’t let those things go.

But I remembered it was just a sunset.

Just an abstract idea of you.

Not your body.

Not your heart.

Not you.

Nothing is like you.

Nothing echoes like you.

You rang through with truth,

Universal truth,

That told me I wasn’t alone.

You were the gunshot that started the war inside of me

The war of who I was

And who I will become.

Nothing even comes close to you.

Not even that sunset.

But I swear I saw your smile in that ooey gooey pink grey sunset.

Mountain range to the northwest with the start of the winter snow

Scattered across it

 like the way you push your hair back on Sunday afternoons on your couch.

And I began to think if I was a little taller

If I could jump a little higher

I could wrap my fingers around those clouds.

I could cling to that smile of yours

And I would drift away to wherever you are.

But I’m not tall enough.

I can’t jump high enough.

No, I’m just stretching and coming back with empty fingers.

But I hope you don’t need me.

I hope you don’t need me to press you together

To hold you together.

To keep the little things that make you so sweet

From falling through the cracks.

But if you do?

If you do need me?

Let me know.

I will find myself a ladder.

I will climb up to the clouds

And I will find you there.