February

She is perched on her rickety wooden chair, grinning

at her textbook like it cracked a joke

when she cracked its spine. I want to ask her why

she is shivering under the AC at the table closest

to me, hunched over hours worth of work

I keep distracting her from.

I could tell her to wear shorts in the shade

of a walnut tree, stretch her bare legs on

manicured and sun-baked grass, prop her head

on bark and watch the neighborhood dogs take walks,

in between ladybugs and messages and paragraphs.

But she chooses to sit here, reminding me

of the first day we met, her hair in that same

haphazard ponytail, loose t-shirt, ripped jeans,

curling strands dangling on each side of her head.

They flew upward every time she sighed, rolling

her eyes every time she let someone else interrupt her.

Both our futures point to replacing cedars with palms,

hands saturated with saltwater, skin burnt and wallets

hungry. The odds will always be against us,

too pale to tan, too busy to feel free.

Moving one coast to another is the one leap

we know we can take.

But we will not take it together.

She is alone, still staring at her book while I try not to stare

at her, my waist pressed against the counter that blocks her off

like permanent caution tape. I scrub sticky spilled lattes and pray

for time to stop ticking, for someone to tell me I cannot leave.

Because when I am off the clock, my obligation to stay

will be gone. I will leave, the whole time wishing

I could strap myself to the empty chair beside her

and listen, wishing I could forget that desire

feels like vulnerability and I never learned how to be okay

with that, wishing my nonchalance wasn’t forced, begging myself

to act normal, look normal, think normal, talk normal, say

anything, stay inside and stop worrying whether she knows

how in love with her I am. Stay inside, where it is cold

and dark and sticky because goosebumps

are more easily ignored than regret.

It is February, and it is warmer

outside than it will ever be in.