Soles (City Boy)

Soles (City Boy)

i tugged at your arm and pouted
as you scratched our initials into the park bench
with our apartment key.
“can our lives be any more like a cheesy romance novel?!”

and you pushed up your glasses
and flashed me a smirk
and said simply,
“don’t test me.”

i’d always been a forest girl,
counting rows of corn instead
of cracks in the concrete,
sitting cross-legged under my bridge
listening to birds croon on crooked telephone lines
used to carrying a different kind of call.

but you showed me this place
where the sky glowed with
the beacons found below,
on passing cars
and the skyscrapers
like older brothers
looming far above our heads
yes, now we were living among the stars.

i arrived in the morning
and by mid-afternoon
i had internalized the sounds
of a hundred soles
scuffing across ill-kept sidewalks,

but our soles were dancing up on the rooftops
and no one could hope
to call us down.

i held tight to your hand
as you pulled us through the crowd
to some swanky little record store,
and we ran through like children
holding up the best above the rows
and gathering sizable stacks
before heading out the door,
the doorbell calling out behind us.

i was still ensnared
by the bumps and brushes
with so many people,
shivering with each unexpected touch,
but the bumps of our elbows
against one another was a different feeling entirely.

flashing neon attacked from every shop window
and,
I sincerely believe,
from somewhere behind your glasses.

dust rose in surprise
and danced in the day’s last light,
uprooted from the window seat.

I watched it romp
as you carefully set the needle down.

a sweet and familiar crackle
before the past began to sing,
and you walked over wordlessly
and you wrapped your arms around me
and we were home at last.

night fell
and sirens screamed,
but your eyes
told of warmer
and happier things.

it is dark
when the record begins to crackle out
an ending.
we are under covers
of shadow and cloth,
listening to each other breathe,
our hands over one another’s hearts.

“penny for your thoughts?”
i kiss you as deeply as i can
because it’s the only answer i know
and your hand rests on my blushing cheek
and i know you understand.

our legs move against one another playfully
as I pull the blanket over our faces
and we stay there
until the sun
leaves us squinting,
the record still crackling
somewhere far away.

with him, i am my best self.
he gave me love, he gave me everything.
my city boy was my story to tell;
i am his every night.
we were the couple others smiled at while
watching from across busy coffee shops;
ever revising our perfect love’s story.