Babyface by Rachel Calleja

You bought me a tomato on our first date.
You were the first person I had occupied space with 

who didn’t question my love of eating them like apples fallen from trees.
You told me Autumn was your favourite season.

You felt the greatest affinity with leaves and watching them float to the ground.
You found yourself in the red and orange and every hue that represented fire and passion 

and you just wanted the world to let go..

to dance with you in the street.
There should not have been
even a snowflake of winter in your bones.
They moved with the fluidity of summer rain.
No photo could contain your liquidation
nor your patience in those of us that hadn’t yet mastered the master plan.
You held my hand like it was a secret I hadn’t yet confessed, 

traced truth into every life line and I held my breath 

cause I wasn’t ready to let some boy with a painted on smile
teach me about honesty..

the irony.

When I met you, it was silent.
We shared smiles and soundless laughter
You were a mime on the street corner,
coins in overturned hats were my offering,
a camera click your request for a number;
I’d said yes before we’d ever even heard each others voices.
I swear that day the sky spoke for us.
Light streamed down on us, see I met you in Summer
but we didn’t date until the sun had set
and September had started.
Always the artist
I swear you planned it that way.
Knowing my tendency for the poetic
you wanted me able to say I fell for you in Fall.

It was funny, we couldn’t decide what tall people did on dates
so you took me to a place with the lowest ceilings you could find;
we confined ourselves to crouching.
Who would of thought a day of bad posture and slouching
would make me feel so high.
We sat between stacks of books and exchanged love stories,
tales of riches and glories.
You assured me we’re all our own authors;
we can never let our own lives bore us
nor can anyone write it for us.

It’s been 4 weeks since you wrote your final pages
and I’m still searching for the epilogue amongst the haze and the fog,
for the final plot twist, hoping this is just a cliff-hanger..
hanging onto suspense before we find a hidden sentence
that tells us ‘and then he woke up’.
That you’d merely jumped believing life to be a dream
these snowstorms – Dorothy’s tornado,
you just really wanted to see that yellow brick road,
please.

I met you in the Windy City.
You shared with me your sails,
but I never fell for you cause you taught me how to fly.
Now you’ve left us behind,
wondering what to do when the coach turns his life into a nose-dive.
How do you trust our own wings
when your pilot decides to die?

The day I found out,
I dug nails into palm until tomato juice ran from my life lines,
finally confessed that secret I’d been so long trying to hide:
we are all afraid of heights..
of seasons passing.
We don’t want to fall like leaves amongst the grass
but to catapult into every last moment:
wings open, spirit blazing,
to lose sight of gravity amongst the haze.

I never got to tell you
you made me happier than anyone I’ve ever known.
I hope you’ve finally made it home
to a library of your own stories
a town of street corners
and smiles that aren’t plastered on with paint.
You once told me life is a maze
of choices, fate and facing what we fear.
You were not alone.
We are all afraid to die
I hope you found peace
in your reckless courage..
I hope you’ve conquered this fear with flight