From the first day I met you

All I needed to do was

Memorize the sound of your laugh bouncing over the lifeless gray linoleum floor

Memorize the warmth of your arms wrapped around my shaking shoulders

Memorize the feeling of my brain shutting down, deleting every possible witty comeback, when your cerulean eyes flitted over my fainéant smile

Relive every glorious moment of our first conversation, me mumbling on about beaches when you first spoke of California, your home

Record the way your voice danced and slid over every gorgeous syllable about some lovely countryside

Replay the seemingly meaningless conversations thereafter, tracing each one for information, little notions

Try hard not to die the first time you complimented me on that ugly top that didn’t match my shoes

Go somewhere private to die the first time I wore your sweatshirt

Surely this is all I’d have to do

To impress you, win your heart

Studly you

So what could the paramour that could be you want to do with simple me

A faint heart what’s always dreaming

Her own fantasia and delusions of grandeur laced with fey realities

That are more or less stranger than fiction