if i had to explain the way you’re beautiful it’d probably be like the pocket watch necklace i found at a secondhand store the morning after you called me. the battery is dead and the time is stuck with both the hands over the one roman numeral, and the lady who sold me it said it’d need a new battery but it’s so much better without one. i’d prefer it this way frozen to the time it stopped working. when the cogs stopped turning inside of it and nobody ever fixed it. and i wear it around my neck under my shirt a lot of days, it doesn’t need fixed for me to love it, the simple way it feels when it thuds against my chest when i move or the way the raised parts on the back feel when i press my thumb against it. you’re beautiful like the postcards i spend hours going through at this antique store where that school shooting was. you’re like this postcard that was two dollars, which is a lot for a postcard when you consider i take home about seventeen, but i really wanted it and it said “just think of poor bill under the bed” with a picture of the cadillac hotel in detroit, i feel like you’re beautiful like this hologram sticker of a carousel horse my parents got me for one of my birthdays when i was a kid, remind me to show you it because i still have it. beautiful like the tiny origami crane my best friend folded me, like the way it feels like nothing in my hands but it’s everything. or this little ring i found in k-mart when i was hiding in the clothes racks with my brother, or this little red and white braided bracelet stuck in the edge where the street meets the sidewalk i found the day i left hamilton, some little girl’s i’m sure. i don’t know, like the astronaut coin i got from the service plaza on the drive home after i finally kissed you. after i finally fucking kissed you, and i made another one with a cardinal, two quarters and a penny, and i gave that one to my best friend chris. i wanted him to have it and a lot like this necklace pendant i have with the twin towers on it. still on it. they’re still there. i’m saving all these things and i don’t know what for but you’re beautiful like these things are, you’re beautiful like when i hold your hand i want to know every line. i want to trace veins in your arms, i want to run my fingers over the back of your hands on the knuckles. you’re a lot like when it snows at night when i’m at work, and the whole lobby is just windows so i stand there instead of washing the dishes and i miss nobody in particular but i just miss places, moments. it’s coming down so slow and gold cause the street light is shining on it. i’d want you there, could i hold your hand while we watch it and could you please try for a second to know that i feel that way about you. you feel more like images than words, like my postcards or like movies that changed my life, i’ll meet you in another life when we are both cats. beautiful like someone playing the piano while you sit on the bench with them, beautiful like the way how i will never get tired of getting out of my car at night and looking up at the sky. there are so many stars here. you’re beautiful like knowing they’re up there. you’re as beautiful for as sad as i get when they’re not when the clouds hide them. you’re as influential to me as my car wreck was, and i hope that makes sense because i mean it in the best way because it changed my whole life. i can feel you changing my life when i got out of my car and gave you your pink roses, it was like i knew right then you can’t go back from this, and it’s scary because i told you last night it feels like an anvil is on my chest and i just started crying more, and it’s so hard to be alive again because i signed all the papers, i signed away everything it’s all gone it was boarded all up and forgotten, and you’re dusting everything, taking all the sheets on the furniture off, and tearing off the bad wallpaper. just let me in, let me try and i won’t go anywhere, i just want to live inside you almost. i just want to do what you’re doing for me for you too, you are so beautiful in ways i will never be able to tell you but god will i try.