Before we met,
Every time my feet were cold on the brownstone,
Cold on the concrete.
Cold from the metal.
Cold from wherever I went because I had perfectly good shoes and trashed them because I wanted to take a dip in the bay.
The next day I found a warm orange jacket and my beanie was toasted by the cart I bought my breakfast at.
This was where you found me.
At the dumpster, singing my heart out and spitting the new lyrics that caught everyone’s attention, my beat unequivocal to whatever posse thought that had a chance, and my lungs were just going to explode with further lyric until I came across a new set of duds to cherish with my soul.
Until all I longed for was a cold night without heat and the snowflakes fall on my fingertips at the last caress of my nicotine stick as my lungs traded lyric for echo.
You saw me digging through the trash and asked if I was hungry.
I told you I just ate, I was looking for merchandise.
I thought you were odd and somehow subliminally depraved.
Years later, fumbles and tumbles.
Now my jacket is black.
And we listen to a man dressed alike because you said it made you happy and reminded you I did have creaky joints, creakier than yours, hair greasier, fuller, and my spit shown gold on the sidewalk every time you got me a morning coffee.
You accused me of a nip and dib.
I said you were wrong this time and your silver has been accustomed to the blues.
Grass was greener with us two, very soon, and you wanted that blue too.
I told you I wouldn’t change. You could wait two or three of my lifetimes and not a damn thing would show to be useful to you.
I still cause you trouble.
Two peas strung in a pod, and this whole time I was just being shy.
I’ve been waiting too.
Waiting in blue sneakily, and I even switched to yellow a few times.
Now I find myself favoring orange.
Like some decade I never saw and you just said I missed out.
But I remind you of it.
I remind you of all those times I’ve spent exploring with every single of my senses.
I guess we ran into each other too many times, before I caught on that I had your attention too long ago.
You wanna share the dumpster with me?
And I saw the garbage juice land on the sleekest black of oxfords and the thinnest pinstripes I had ever seen on your non-grandiose-grandiose suit suddenly disappeared, as they were perfumed by the lunch I saved in the crate next to me with some hand warmers tucked in the wrappers.
I was tinkering with this idea for long. You said it was genius, I said it was necessity.
How else would I enjoy an Italian beef sandwich with extra cheese slices and sauce, dipped extra juicy; to be caught off-guard to realize I’m eating lunch with a lactose intolerant.
You would never handle this cream.
And you scraped the cheese off with your densely large bare hands and gave it to me.
You still let me have your fries too.
These days; you’re more the hand warmers and I’m the wrap.
I still fit perfectly.