permenantly temporary (long live the bean bags)

The cardboard boxes should be painted better colors.
They make the already bleak walls look like Arizona soil.
The more the boxes are moved, the emptier they get.
They become harder to shut though.

The strings become thinner, and easier to break.
Most of them we don't even bother tying, just for convenience when our time is done.
We flash those smiles in the refrigerator light, and for the flickering screens.
When the doors shut and the showers turn on, the smiles melt and drip onto our toes along with the scalding water.

The mud and berries are temporary thrills, just embellishments, like the gold frame you hung to hide the crack in the drywall.

The tilt-a-whirl doesn't stop spinning until it's time is up.
And surely every tilt-a-whirl is on it's own schedule.
(the schedules are not, however, available for viewing)

So we wait, and we run and we play hide and seek.
We crack and we fall, and we cover it up.
We sing and we paint, but the paint never chips.
 
And the schedules are still not available for viewing. 


 

Run by me

I couldn't make eye contact with you that day because as soon as I pulled up to your house and saw the clothes you were wearing I felt like I couldn't breathe.
Your polo and colored shorts made you look like an east coast boy, and if you were an east coast boy then you weren't anywhere close to me.
You got in the car and I tried to play it cool, but every time I tried to look into your eyes those shorts just screamed at me and I remembered how far away that silly college was from Oregon and from Utah.
I knew that you would notice my eyes hadn't met yours because you notice everything and you analyze everything but I liked that, so don't think I am complaining.
You bought me my chai tea latte because I picked you up since your car stopped working because you didn't pay enough attention to it. I didn't mind picking you up though because it meant I got to see you.
I just really wasn't expecting those east coast shorts.

I am sorry that I got mad at you, and I am sorry that I forgave you, and I am sorry that I don't know anything about my brain, but I am glad that you do.

You asked me why I couldn't look at you, and you thought it was because I was embarrassed since I wasn't wearing makeup.
Of course that seemed silly to me because you have seen me a million times without makeup, plus who cares about makeup anyways? Also you told me that I was decently attractive, so I wasn't very worried.

It's just that those east coast shorts made my breath turn into tomatoes in my throat, and you know how I am so allergic to tomatoes.
But now you really are an east coast boy, and you really are far away from Oregon and from Utah.

And you have a new best friend, and you say that she is great, but you also say that she's not like me at all.

I hope that she likes your east coast shorts and I hope that she has nice ankles, and I hope that she isn't allergic to the tomatoes that make breath get caught in peoples throats.

I hope she is merry and I hope she is graceful and I hope that she appreciates your rants and your speeches and how much you won't stop talking because I appreciate that and I appreciate you.