If I Was A Love Letter

If I was a love letter

I’d start in perfect script

On pastel paper I had folded into a football and slipped into your backpack between classes

I’d lovingly dot the I’s on occasion with hearts

And remind you that it’s you I think about

You I feel like a whisper on my skin

You I hear dripping Spanish into my ear

(Words you know I do not understand and yet long for like a forgotten inner language)

I would gracefully curl each word in cursive

Careful to keep every line perfect

Perhaps changing ink colors from time to time in order to be more beautiful

Maybe I would draw flowers in the margins that remind me of tumbleweeds

Like the ones I saw on my first trip with you

When you held my hand in a dusty unfamiliar town and I was blind to the fact that we were nowhere wonderful

And yet

So wonderful

Because I was there with you, only you.

But I’m not the perfect love or letter

And I’m certain that by now my script has wavered into my quick lowercase scribble

The colors smeared by the side of my palm as I dragged myself through the words I’m so desperate to say