photo diary 13

The boy with webbed hands and seaweed eyes

had a funny way of saying things.

he choked on tufts of marigold

and tumbled through fields of lavender.

He always had a pocketful of pistachios

just so he could leave behind their empty shells

to be crushed and cracked upon.

One day he decided to leave,

Just like that.

And so he packed some herbs

and such lovely portraits of

people with pastel frosted dresses

and powdered wigs.

You know, he once told me that he was afraid.

Afraid of forgetting the hymns he sang every day.

He said once his webbed hands were wrinkled

and his eyes drained of color

and had turned to a mysterious murky melon,

he would surely forget.

First the last lines and then the chorus

and soon enough there would be no song left to sing.

His sanguine cheeks were now just a pale palette

as he dried damp dears in my loose arms

and begged me to never forget him.

And I promised him that I never would.