messy wisdom

We were girls together in another life

in my dreams we are five years old in a field making flower crowns of wild plants we pretend are daisies 
and ten, giggling in the dark susurration of our sleeping bags in a language just for us   
and seventeen, stumbling arm-in-arm in a land of love and loss 
under the blinding light of romance films and high-school hormones

In this life,
your babies are young and we are too, for a moment
leaning across the kitchen counter
I am drinking in the moments like a fine red wine, 
flushed cheeks and rosy-lipped, 
until I am drunk enough to forget what order the years go  

I can't help but bet on the little girl practicing piano
her tiny tongue-tied fingers tangling and untangling,
divining where to dance
From the couch I give her a standing ovation and a bouquet of daisies and
hope she hears me cheering over the ticking clocks

If I could just preserve a moment, 
you'd be leisurely running errands in a ballcap and oversized tee
a perfect picture of drive-through coffee and daycare drop-offs 
and you have nothing but time 

In this life,
we are thirty
you notch your boy's growth chart higher, 
and I think you, too, have left your mark 
I know time travel isn't real because 
we would've found each other sooner

we're just children after all