An end-of-era homage.

This is an homage to a little poem called little infinities [here] by my friend called Avery. I feel like I can't take hardly any credit for anything beautiful about this piece, because the creative credit really goes to Avy, and the rest of it is just because I got lucky and ended up with a lot of really nice people in my life. xoxo

Phosphorus beauty, you never needed anybody, but the world is on your doorstep; it's begging for you to let it in. The world is yours more in its music than its microscope lenses, and years and years from now, they'll thumb through your notebooks and say, "God must be real; He has to be." There are things that you know and there are things that you are.

Xanax beauty, no one's ever going to love you more than I do, no matter how hard they try, and believe you me, they'll try so hard. You see the world through real, honest glasses, never rose colored and never graying, just the way it is, and then you smile at it. There are things you should fear and there are things you should embrace.

Pianissimo beauty, your sheer athletic bravado, I thought I knew love and then I saw you at my piano. You stepped out of a jazz age, something like a lullaby, and I wonder what you wonder about, how maybe you see thirty-second notes in the grass, or maybe you just see them on the tips of your fingers. There is A flat and there is B flat minor. There are the things that you say and the things that you laugh about.

Long-legged beauty, I still cry when someone whispers your name. Numbers drop, lungs expand, starter gun shot, and I still cry when I watch you running. Your heart and your mind are separate things; you and me are separate things; your socks and mine are separate things. There are things that I'll remember and things that I'll miss.

Philadelphia beauty, I've never loved something so much as I love the way the sun loves you. You never found home and you're never letting go of that, climb on a plane, see the world, touch the sunshine and never turn back, but I'll always set you a place at the dinner table. There are things you pack and there are things you cling to.

Medicinal beauty, you spend most nights on my family room couch, simultaneously making me wish I was you and terrifying me that I will become you. Let your hair curl. These are my hands. I am tall and you are tall and we both wear heels and that makes sense to me. You don't get to pick your relatives. There are the grades you'll get and there are the gravestones you'll see.

Ink-filled beauty, it's you I want to be when I grow up. I know you see poems in the streets and we'll write them together, toss them out the window, call for gun control, and die together, and you'll still answer the phone when I call at 1 am. These are the perks of being an insomniac. There are the things that you talk about and the things that you write about.

Scriptural beauty, your aggression felt like a personal insult, and now it just feels like home. Smarter than all of us but still having trouble with homophones, if I'm here to humble you, you're here to fix me. There are promises you can break and there are promises you can't.

Laundry Room beauty, do I thank you often enough? You're not excitable, but you're charitable, and I like the way you like the heat. I'll kiss you goodbye and set off into the world, broke except for your phone calls, broken except for the lunch you packed me -- what you asked of me was easy, and how many ways can I say that I'm sorry before you know what I mean? There are the children who will never leave you and there are the children who will never forget to tell you they love you before they close the car door.

Fiscal.
All my love,
Addy