Yellow

Even now, the looming tree serves as a reflection of who we are and how we are connected. I imagine that when we first sat under it, our thoughts were not as similar as I had thought them to be when I was young. That does not matter now, but someday, I hope to ask you what you were thinking when you first saw it. We shared many forgotten memories under this tree; the lost conversations, the days when what was important was not why we were there or what we were doing, but the fact that we were there together.

Sometimes, I will wake up to a vivid memory of us with every detail as clear as the day it happened; the speckles of dirt that spotted your face on the day when you jumped in front of me to surprise me and went straight from a witty grin to a nervous embarrassed smile. Your lower lip just barely visible as you bit it and shyly looked away, my teenager self unable to realize what I had done wrong until midway through a thought you grabbed me and, kissed me, we both were as a bright as the painted red walls behind us when we heard whistles around us. Mostly, I wake up and recall a bit of lost memory; the feel of the faded yellow dress you only wore that last time we were there; I had bought it as a gift just that day at the thrift store on the way. Today, faded yellow dresses still line the walls where we bought your dress, but the store now goes by a new name.

The last time I left our tree, these memories were all together, every moment I thought of you it was like a fast forward through the scents that all combined into you. Nowadays, even as I stare at the drifting leaves of our tree, the memories that were once so many I now desperately reach out and grasp them, hoping to hold them for moments longer before they slip away. The bark of the willow tree is scarred by our marks, made by the knife that now sits in the waters of the Mississippi; maybe had I not thrown it away would another of our memory still be with me. But this tree is all that is left of us.