Eden Evie Wright

Your voice is dipping low into the sunset, Time isn’t on our side anymore

And I resent it for that, for taking back what it lent to me

But I think we have it now, In your front garden

The one you carved by hand

When you show me your plants

And we feed the birds, your birds. You let me know all the dreams you have for me, And I’m not sure we’ll always agree. My youth tends to blind me, and your experience does the same. You often forget I am a clean slate, and I forget you are not.

Your hand is in mine and sometimes, when you doze off, I watch you through a watery lens

I can’t believe in God, when things work out like this (Even though it would probably help) But I do think I’ve found Eden, When every bittersweet feeling for us gathers itself in a runny nose I refuse to let you see

And I am desperate to burn the image of you, Sunhats and reading glasses and the fresh air, So deep into my memory that it takes root in my body

Grows around my heart, my bones, rose thorns bound into me for an eternity.

I am greedy to want this forever

But this moment, the time we have to know one another, has to be enough.

So I’ll take it.

The inevitable emptiness, The hours that would’ve been spent on the phone to you, It’ll be a wasteland

None of your flowers growing here anymore,

But maybe I’ll spend it writing, I’ll write the flowers you used to plant

Try growing something new I think you’d like that

And I’ll know we made it then, Our fleeting Eden

In the garden when your flowers were in full bloom (And you made sure I was wearing sun cream).