after all the rusted years

and the miles we fed into silence

you took my hand in the lighthouse-flaring fog

and we drove to Redondo in the morning dark.

The pier had its teeth in the Pacific again

dripping salt and fish blood

the wind slapping seaweed

into the stories we told the kids.

I watched the wet glint in your eyes

remember the secret language

we built from scratch in that two-bedroom

with busted plumbing and too many windows.

 

I told you I still remembered

how your laugh broke the world into Technicolor.

You said love doesn’t die...

it waits in the glove box next to the unpaid parking tickets

and the birthday cards we forgot to mail.

The ocean wore its hunger well—

black and massive and swallowing itself

as we stood there

our shoes drunk on salt water

watching the pelican dip into the soft machinery of waves.

You said look how the ruined things keep flying

and I wanted to touch every bruise we gave each other

just to say I’m alive—just to say I’m here.

 

The sky burned down behind Palos Verdes

all twilight hues of violet and indigo

and we kissed like rain hitting wildfire.

Because when you leaned into me

and called me by my name—

not the one the world knows but the one

you stitched together with devotion and heat—

everything ugly in the world

curled up and went to sleep.