I call you Switzerland
of hues, neither
light nor dark.
My thoughts are colored
in every shade of you:

stillness between
storms in hurricane skies,
early morning
mist, the faint lines
of tree branches, pencil-etched
across the skyline
from below, the spaces
between blurred, lines
of graphite smeared
by my lover’s left hand.

I love the way you look
in autumn best: charcoal roads,
rain-soaked and slick
with dirt. Your shadow hangs
above the ground and I walk
through your fog, let you
coat my skin in sprinkles
while I kick up the fallen
leaves. the soft shades of late
summer still clinging
to the tree branches,
one by one, learning
to let go.

Now, it is winter
and I am walking
in January’s cold
drizzle, slipping
in hidden mud
puddles, splashing water
across the pavement,
stippling my ankles with earth.

Perhaps
I lend too much
meaning to the way
my eyes bend the light.
I put words in your mouth,
prop myself up
against your mystery
backdrop and I don’t
disappear: I stand
out. Define myself against
your ambivalence, take up
the spaces between
the lines, fill the room
with everything
I’m not.

Lindsay (she/her) is a queer writer, researcher, and hoarder of interests. She is often cycling through a stack of unfinished books or taking too many pictures of her cats sleeping. You can find here in multiple places on the web, starting here: LindsayCortright.com