a wandering eye

It’s warm and it’s sunny. The dry kind of sunny. You know, the kind that’s light, golden yellow? Like feathers and the wind. The kind of sunny that makes your skin crinkle a bit. Makes cold orange juice taste brighter, taste fuller. Makes flower petals droop and wilt, but just enough to still be pretty. He kneels down and picks one out of the ground. She watches as he uproots it. Can’t help but notice how the petals match the sunlight. How thoughtful. Like saying, my love for you is warm and yellow. Cool as honey, my dearest bumblebee. He puts it in her hair, nesting it safely behind her ear. Always gentle as can be. No wonder it’s his legacy.

She tilts her head a bit to the right. Half-smiling, eyes glistening. A classy neckline, an ivory broach, a strand of pearls, a simple heart. He can’t seem to take his eyes off of her today.

I’ve always wanted to roam an old, empty house on a day with that kind of sunshine. A house with fewer walls than windows, fewer closings than openings. One with tall, tall ceilings, kind of like what you see in Victorian-inspired movies, the ballroom floors and crystal chandeliers. Porcelain vases and royal crown molding. Women wearing small, white gloves and their lips reading elegance. I imagine it to have no furniture at all. Just big, empty rooms. And every room would have windows spanning the height of the walls, sunlight pouring through. Endless rays of sunlight, so strong and so much that you could see all the dust floating in the air. And the wood panels on the floor, those too. Aged and rustic, but glowing. Basking in the sunlight, bringing out every shade and hue of brown never known to exist.

You and your wandering eye. How could you ever understand why I’d love such a moment? And to think, to fathom, to ever spend it with me.

But even if you did, I doubt that you could see it the way I do, with my eyes …