Parting Gifts
I want my life to
smell like old books and musty cologne. I want it to hang on my clothes and
cling to my hair. I want a life that sounds like floating laughs and old music
that you can dance to. I want wholesome, lively and crisp. I want dewy grass
and golden sun. I want to capture the moment of love in your eyes and remember
it until I die. I want to show it to God and wear it like a necklace; close to
my heart. I want to hold the feeling of late nights on my feet and when I look back
I don’t want my life to be bright. I want it to be dim with candles to light
the way. Cozy rooms and Christmas’s with woodstoves, sunsets and the glow of
the moon against your skin; nights that hold your breath and refuse to let it
go.
I want to die with
the memories of summer. I want to take to my grave a fist full of bursting
laughs and I want you to make sure my other hand is open to let go of every
regret. I will die with cobble stones in my pockets and dandelions in my hair,
and the sweet taste of raspberries will cling to my lips as I mutter my last
words on this ink stained and boundless planet.
But first, let me experience
another night filled with whispers of crickets and the sound of your breaths.
First, let me feel your palm against my cheek, just one more time. And this
time we will not bid farewell, we will not part with tears on our cheeks but
rather, smiles in our teeth and the hum of birds fluttering in our hearts.
I will speak words
of love and leave with a natures call and you will only have the lasting memory
of me at seventeen with a child’s smile that’s lit up by the stars and your eyes.
And goodbye will
be painful, but I will look to the stars and the heavens painted with pink and
orange hues that color my skin golden and I will leave behind an initial on an
oak tree and a foot in cement and a print upon your heart for I was here, and I
have lived, and now I have left.
