Flâneuse

But when the love for this world gets too big and achy inside me . . .

– Joy Sullivan

A day of breaking. A sense of endings, beginnings, returning to origins. I took my love for a walk, hoping to give the immensity of it somewhere to go. Each step a deeper saturation. A symphony of summer blossoms, plants, trees, letting my fingers linger in the the memories of branches; some still fresh, others with bark scabbed over what was once whole. Joe Magnarelli's The Duke on repeat. Crows calling, following, protective. Am I rising or falling and how can it be both, at once? Throat flush with sobs, tears laughing away public decorum, delighted by their artwork on the canvas of my brown skin. The unbearable beauty. The solace that raw splendor drowns others, too.