Promise

I didn’t even know.

You weren’t even there three years ago.

Yet now you are the sustainable, the thriving whole.

You never gave me goosebumps.

You just permeated in the cracks of my lips, in the coffee stains on my teeth, at the dotted yet smooth back, sank into my consciousness, into every fleeting marriage of my feet and the ground.

I didn’t even know.

You were just there swooshing your ugly leaves.

I must have seen you along the blinding neons and among the busy legs and mouths of the red light district. I swear I looked at you attentively and staggeringly at the top, at the edge of the concrete building.

I felt your waiting. It rose higher, getting lighter and lighter by the days.

I didn’t even know. I must have missed it.

You gave your word without me recognizing it.

Now you are the sustainable, the thriving whole.