Kicking street side cans you are learning how to walk with me. Hands slipping in and out of hands, every step taking me faster into a spiral of smiles, and the sound flip-flops make when I'm running. Watching, from across the road, they wonder what makes us go round in circles when a straight line would do but they don't understand the quickest way to my heart is skipping. Sun is optional for I have knees which hide curiously behind Wellingtons. Splashing is my shower and the rain will have to do because I haven't had time to take a bath. Slick messy curls twist to the back of my neck with a pencil keeping the strands in check. I look different every single day. You know it's me by the quick lashes hiding my ever searching eyes. Complicated necklaces drape over breast bone and a scarf around my wrist reminds me my hands are tools. Silk guiding to fingers prevents stationary pauses on my belly at night. Instead I write a life lived on the rough edges of watercolors. Colors bleeding into portraits and landscapes, familiar as snow and orchards. There is no going home for me. That place left me when I was 16 and sleeping on a neighbors sofa. My momma loved everything except reality but I grew up to be a pretty lady any way. So here we are friend. Running down the streets and across the parking lot I am making you dance with me. Pulling your arm to its full extension I duck beneath your elbow and spin around. Face erupting into grin in that moment you love me more than anything else. That is my Sharpie mark in you life. This second will fade (and perhaps we will too) but we will always have that. Dancing in a parking lot and enjoying the pressure of plain adoration because I can make you laugh until the creases beside your eyes water your cheeks. This is perfect for a band of liars and storytellers who only make sense when the other is in a good mood. Darling we are a circus of bearded women and trapeze artists. Swinging above a trembling fall, falling would be a small sacrifice to keep this feeling suspended in the air between our lips.