while listening to old silver against worn porcelain,

I measure refracted sunbeams against your radiance.

my cap and gown reflection in your prism eyes

bends the white noise into dull rainbows.

the clock has long since settled into the background

but time never really stands still

and we know that because we are trying our hardest.

you flatten your words before speaking. I can’t

comment. because we are no strangers to how hope

expands far past what is healthy.

then the plastic fork misses your mouth just slightly

and it’s me in the outfield to catch your eye–

out.

suddenly we’re laughing, then spitting, then cackling,

mocking the Fate’s ending to the heroes’ tapestry:

just this flour and frosting, a mixture instead of a monolith—but somehow

somehow, we found so much meaning in the last two years

that the cake from a college cafeteria

finally tasted like cake

[hope is like helium, nonflammable

quietly immune to hot heads and impermanence

light enough to lift lead-hearted zeppelins away from any stairway.

floating isn’t flying, but maybe if we float high enough,

we will rise above the cloud nines and silver lines

and eat cake together again]

[we never did

and still,]