To Let The Right One In

If I could write you a sonnet, I would. But you are not the kind of boy who likes things halfway. While I am caffeine veins and prose written in corners of newspapers, you are precision and sutures, naps at 7pm, and plastic wrapping over medical books in the mail.

The clock is fifteen past three and the sun starts to set over Harlem’s bed on Convent. There’s construction and purple haze, jazz musicians playing at 145^th, with a pair of hundred dollar jordans withering away in the sky.

You tell me you like my red dress but you’re two hours late. And—there’s this despair that won’t concede and it feels like the cold war in Harlem Maison tonight. The night turns into passive aggressive forks scraping against dinner plates while the table shakes.

It’s nothing personal; if anything, I suppose we’re just a stream of what-ifs and oh-wells. After all, you are the boy with a smile like Christmas; and I am the girl who has a tendency to drown in indigo blues.

“I think I knew you before,” you’d say, “once upon a time.”

I am the kind of girl you could never fall in love with at first sight. I am a half-assed inner monologue riddled with inconsistencies and hypocrisies; but you are genuine and unbroken, and solitude isn’t your forte.

“I knew,” I’d tell you, “but it’s never summer where I’m from.”