the flea

it was a grey morning. we tripped down the overgrown hill, bugs snapping at our exposed ankles. i handed you two yellow sunflowers, my heart balanced on each of their delicately wilted petals. the downy hair on the stems pricked my palms. you picked the sunshiney-est one. 

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mud clung to the soles of your expensive boots. the rain had washed away some of the grass overnight, and the morning dew didn't help to dry your socks. i knew you wanted to go home. we walked in silence to the only sunlit area.

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i didn't dare to look you in the eye. the viewfinder had already fogged up, and i preoccupied myself with the menial task of cleaning the camera that wasn't even my own. you complained of mosquitoes and flies. i wished the blood that ran through my veins was yours instead. it was peculiar, this feeling; i felt like the spirit of john donne had overtaken my feeble arms to create this illusion of grandeur before me.

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together, we swayed in the still morning air and spun in circles like children until the sun rose higher, blazing away the rest of our hesitant youth. what was left? weary nobodies? dissatisfied strangers?

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a car rumbled by, and i could hear it squeak down the lane even as it disappeared from view. goodbye, volkswagen beetle.

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i wish you had crushed me with your finger that day, and purpled your nail with my sinful blood. but still i live on the side of your sheets, clinging to the fabric of this reality.