Submarine

 DNA

It's clear we wouldn't last the year. but taken from an outsiders perspective. young love was tragic love and we were all kinds of that. young. tragic. ghostly.
I stared at her from across the class-room. the only class we had together. Marine biology.  Fish swimming in the salty sea. some such nonsense like tides, rip currents, aquaculture. my sperm still trying to swim inside her from late Saturday night. Jelly-fish slow and drifting. poison. slow and drifting. 
 I  turned in slightly above average grades. She was good at math, a quality i found sexually attractive. that and knee socks. that and her love for sad dreamy music. that and the fact she'd have me any way i wanted.
 I sat and thought about my future. but couldn't see past the tip of my pen. graduation in 5 months. slightly above average grades. no real effort. no going above and beyond. mild obsessions distract me to easily. like music, like death, like the girl across the room. 

they might not know, i know

colored bulbs, the fat retro kind. the kind we had on our house when i was a kid. I'm standing on top of a ladder putting up christmas lights. It's south florida, the sun beats down on the side of my face. my eyes adjust to the glare. an ice cream truck turns the corner. It's the holidays.

lights thrown randomly across the bushes. I should have done this later in the day. they are plugged in but you'd never be able to tell. on or off. everything seems out of place.

at night things change. in the dark it almost seems like december. lights twinkle, stars flutter. something akin to joy rises briefly in my heart. tinsel in clumps. a homemade decoration hangs from the tree. grandmas ghost is a sparkly beaded ornament. she made one for each of us. it hangs like a mystery, a gift after so many years she's been gone.
it doesn't fit in with the others. its better because it hurts a little. everything good has to hurt a little.