Vermilion

Would you date her? he asked, nodding toward the ragged girl smoking on the corner, faded black tank top tied behind her back and bleached tresses struggling at the ends of her black hair. I shrugged noncommittally, my body a closed shop, my heart a tangle of thorns, but did I not fall in love with her for a minute when we found her later behind the bar? We haven't opened just yet, she said in the beating midday sun, but have a seat. She poured tequila like we were harmless, like the wooden bar would not budge under pressure. We drank like we would not either.

We let the afternoon run away from us, spoke truth into lime wedges and I don't know what the Universe is playing at but for a minute I didn't care. We picked up a roving poet at the edge of the bar and I scribbled illegible phone numbers on napkins and receipt tabs. Everything was a riot, everything was tearing at the seams, I avoid questions like landmines through no fault of anyone: I just don't trust my words not to expose this desperately clinging heart, this uncontrolled wildfire in my veins, this itch at my fingertips that will drag innocents along for the ride if they do not watch themselves.

Yours were the only questions I never avoided. Yours are the only eyes from which I do not turn away to construct quips about the weather. I walk this open book around the city as though it hasn't been a full time occupation to build muscles and scaffolding around the rubble you left behind. It's so easy, it's impossible. The fireflies were out in Brooklyn last night, and all I could think was, alright then.