The sky was so blue that it wasn't blue any longer
The sky ascended our spectrum and forged its own definition of blue
Every time that sky goes back into my mind, the colors shift
The blue gets blue-er and the horizon widens
The ink spot in that new blue sky was my kite
As I raised it higher into the atmosphere
I felt like I was riding the wind and disappearing into the new blue distance
But my feet were hard on the ground
When I was a child, this was my favorite way to spend an afternoon
The last time I flew a kite
The time when blue wasn't the ocean, it wasn't a mood, it wasn't rain clouds
And it wasn't the sky
This blue was all of them
Or maybe I was all of them
And the sky was just the sky
My kite was as high as the rope would let it go
My feet were walking on a world no longer my own
The last time I flew a kite, I wasn't flying a kite
It's strange how we try to balance two things that don't equate in any way
We compensate sadness with food, longing with drinking
And absence with anything to pass the empty days
We make things up to feel better
The little mnemonic devices that alleviates whatever ills us
Like a blue sky, but my blue sky was real
It was all over my head
The last time I flew a kite, the sky wasn't blue and the sky wasn't inside me
Maybe I made it up, maybe it was raining.
As my kite rose higher, I know I saw that blue
At that moment, color splashed into my black and white life
Standing in the middle of an open field with the wind in my face, I lost myself
And just for a minute, I lost your absence
You were still gone, you just weren't on my mind
Finally, I could breathe
And my mouth didn't have your aftertaste
That kite had nothing to do with you, which is why it released me
It was untainted with my present situation
And it solely possessed my childhood
That blue wasn't the ocean, a mood, a rain cloud, or the sky
But it had nothing to do with your death
It only had to do with me, at least for a moment
As my kite rose higher into that impossible blue
I thought about how we never flew kites together