the thing is you deserve to be out west. where the juniper bushes die in the winter and shed their hardened branches across the road. where you can open the brewery. or the honeybee farm. or the bread bakery. where the highway stretches out like a welcome mat across state lines and mountains jut up and out into the ocean, where they crumble to jagged black. that little restaurant on the coast where we ate that oyster stew on the park bench while the november wind ripped through our jackets? yes, right there. i can see you there. or maybe up in oregon, haystack rock dwarfing you by the pacific. or down in california, short-order cooking in that rooftop restaurant where we watched, behind sunglasses, as that odd man behind us rubbed his biscuit butter on his arms. places like those, wide open as the sunset sky, are the only places big enough for this soaring, beautiful spirit of yours. but i am heart-deep happy that you chose our bed instead. wrapped up in tightly pulled flannel sheets with my sleeping legs sprawled over onto your side and pablo's paw in your face. this crowded, tiny space in the back bedroom of my grandfather's house with light glaring in through the cracked wooden door from the hallway lamp that my mama can't turn off. thank you, thank you, thank you.for all the things you know and i can't say. we'll take this town that moves real slow and turn it on its head. we'll make big dreams out of the small things, you and i.
