you're something beautiful, a contradiction

listening to the mixtape, wry voices over the airwaves and trying to write studiously, thoughtfully, but the words spill out in a rush of color, uncontained, unbounded. feet bare, fingers ringed as i type, my nails, enameled an impossible color between red and pink, bubbles sparkling in my water, back-breaking anthology closed on the desk, buses rumbling outside the window in complaint of the tourists, smoke drifting through the window on the breeze and tickling my bare shoulders. thinking of the girl with the delicious words that sip and slip cherry red lips into each other and the one with the music and pictures of far away icy places and near, warm forests and the one with the james-bond mystery name and her stories and heart. all these words, beautiful bittersweet words for a season of contradiction, the almost-summer romance and sweet heartbreak, the lightness on the breeze and terrible cathedral solemnity and power and awe and laughter and all

this mixture of life.