Building Walls

The words ‘I love you’ chipped off of my lips as easy as ever and the wind carried them in your direction.  I barely had time to watch your eyes darken before I was being thrown backwards by the force of something hard.  A wall, 100 feet tall shot up out of the soft Spring ground like the roots of a radish, encircling you.  It was strong, sturdy.  I pushed my fingers against the hardness of it and ran them along the seams between each brick, scarping up mortar under my nails. 

I’d really done it this time.

I find a crack in the wall and peer through into dull light to see that you’ve constructed a fort, kitchen chairs and cardboard boxes.  I decide what I have to do.  I begin to graffiti the wall, long winding and colorful lines of poetry that tell the story of us and I wait as the sun bakes our prose into the bricks.  Soon, the structure begins to fall to dust, big billowing clouds of grey.  When the air clears I find just you and your fortress, you and canned food, flashlights and cigar boxes filled with trinkets, pocket watches and picture books.

You hold back the floral sheet tent flap and I crawl inside, into your world with the silence and the yellow light.  I don’t dare speak those words again, nor do I apologize.  You know that my apology was written into the neon green of the graffiti hearts and stars that I had punctuated each line with.  You read to me from a big leather bound book, stories of love and loss, poems about runaway girls and boys who join the circus just to be alone. 

We stay there all night like that and I tell you I understand, but as you’re drifting off to sleep and the dust from the wall is still settling thick around us, I place a kiss upon your temple and whisper the words again, prepared to battle the walls that are sure to spring like daggers from the ground.