i sit on the end of her bed and watch her braid her hair.
she's beautiful in the dim light from the lamp on the floor.

the way her dark tangelled hair falls around her shoulders makes my heart ache. if only i could run my fingers through it and show her how amazing she looks.
she has pale skin and red cheeks, wide eyes that are sometimes green and sometimes brown, and dark eyelashes that she wishes were longer.

she talks to me about love sometimes. tells me how she's too broken to care, too scared to want to. i tell her that love could heal her cuts and bruises if only she'd let it. but she won't.
if i could tell her how gently i'd handle her heart and for how long i'd hold onto her essence maybe she'd understand what love is about. but she's never really been in love has she? not like this.

we sit on her bedroom floor and drink whiskey from the bottle, her wasting away and me yearning for her to see what i do.
but soon enough we'll move apart and she'll cry for a week over having lost her bestfriend, but i'll remember her when i get asked if i've ever been in love by my children.

i'll tell them, i was in love once. not with your mother, not with a pretty barmaid but with a teenage girl who was too blind to see it. these arms of mine have never held her and these lips of mine never touched hers, but she was the most beautiful girl in the whole world.
they'll stare at me with their young eyes and i'll tell them about how her face was dotted with freckles and how i miss her so, so much.

when my grandchildren ask for stories i'll tell them about the time we climbed all the way to the highest tree together that one summer in highschool; how we sat at the top not saying anything.
how we sat together in the gutter just staring at the streetlights and the stars all night. how i used to be hopeful that she'd fall in love with me too.

i sit on the end of her bed and when she turns to face me i'll tell her she looks nice and that i've got some alcohol and we can share it on the way there.
as we walk down the street she looked so skinny and elegant with her fingernails painted red and the moonlight shining down on her. its so simple now, the way i'll be happy like this for the rest of my life but by the morning is so complicated.

i sit on the end of her bed and wait for those days when i'll be happier and lonlier than ever.