Foolish (Fall 2006?)

(This is when I really really young and naive and romantic. I love how... how idealistic. How caught up. How imaginative you can be when you're nostalgic and haven't been really broken yet. I know this is overkill, but it's nice to remember how this felt...)

As memory reels replay
in tehnicolor
through my mind,
I lapse into a fools paradise
that I discovered inside a slow dance
when twilight was falling
(and you hadn't yet left...)

I'm certain of every detail
contained in that moment,
thought I can't recall which ones I imagined.

A string of lights,
they blend in overhead with dim stars.
And music. Notes written to our own
spontaneous choreography.
Not loud enough to drown out
the sound of your breath on my neck.

The smell of salt water, and you,
and vanilla cream coffee
and my chapstick.
I don't remember any of the scenery
we were placed in, but I know
I watched it move behind you
while your hands rested on my back,
and we swayed there, in a
slow spin.
We were standing on sand,
and then carpet,
and then the roof of the house I grew up in.

This is the dance in my mind that goes on forever.
At least, I don't remember your hands letting go,
or the music fading out,
or how you looked when you walked away.

When I close my eyes
the lights are still hanging
just beneath the sky,
and your lips brush warmly against my ear
as you whisper "I love you"
and then I know,
simultaneously,
that the moment never ended
and I'm a foolish girl.