SSCR

Blue Painted Fingernails

I\'m falling asleep, quickly 

My eyes feel like your arms do the day after you decide to start going to the gym

When you lift about 100 pounds too many over your head 

But I\'m fighting sleep


As someone who usually stays awake until about 7 in the morning, and then wakes up around 8,


You\'d think I would be begging for rest


But as I settle into my pillow and blissfully shut my eyes

 


You reach out blue painted fingernails

 


Wrap them around pink painted finger nails


          Hold on tight


You didn\'t even look at me through the dark space between


But I can hear every I love you I\'ve ever spoken out loud,

                                     echoing


My mouth is arguing with my tired brain


I love you\'s are more serious now


But none of the others seem right anymore,


This pent up I love you is different than the rest


Quieter,

     softer,

          less sharp,

               less mandatory


This I love you walks on the beach when it\'s cold outside


This I love you will sit in a tree until the sky is dark enough to see the stars, playing music I haven\'t heard before


This I love you has sharper eyes, redder hair, bluer finger nails,


Finger nails that wrap around mine and shock me out of a strangely sleepy state


This I love you is a secret, unlike the others


A whisper between my eyes, ears, and mouth


     \"Not today though\" they remind me


This I love you laughs loudly in the grocery store,


And in target,


And in the middle of the night,


And when she kisses me


This I love you keeps me up at night,

tossing and turning,

thinking of how blue and pink fingernails are really pretty paired together


And when you hold onto my hand when I\'m drifting away at night,


I almost forget to hold my tongue


I almost forget to keep my own secrets

You absent mindedly grab hold of me,


And I\'m awake.