I made a list. It starts with "the sky" and ends - I don't know yet.
I'm making a list. It starts with "the sky", which I later thought was too broad so I corrected it to read "the sky after a storm" and then "the sky at the end of a storm when the sun still isn't out and the rain is just seconds from ending" and that's how it remains, neat and tidy, next to the number one.
I was not sure where to go from there, but it was long and then I reviewed it and tried again.
I took off superfluous items such as "horse flies" and "the bottom of a river" and "sakura trees in bloom". These were things people could describe to me again one day and their image would return. They were also things I would encounter less and less, I expected.
I took off over-practical items, for example "my room" or "standard hotels" or "the lair entrance". I have an exceptional muscle memory. The precious space on this list could not be wasted on the mundane.
I took off "book shelves - stacked" and "spider webs"; "my feet," which I had always liked, and "chopsticks" and "lotus overgrowing", and "my hair - wet" and "a child's face" and "the photograph I could never get rid of."
I removed, I revised, I rewrote.
I remove, I revise, I rewrite.
… seventeen, eighteen, nineteen- damn it. It has to be a sum I can count on my fingers, it must be because I can't write it down.
Which is why I made a list.
frogs
a body full of kunai
tea leaves - in the pot or a cup
this ring
this bed
this body
Why I'm making a list - eight, nine.
Eight, nine.
This is a strange feeling, waiting, knowing. Not anxious, but not patient. It will neither be a surprise nor anticipated. But I am waiting to not see these fingers (let it be mentioned here that I never once considered these hands as an addition - there are some things I will be content to no longer see).
"Is it left or-"
"Yes, the left."
"I thought so."
We turn into the shadow of squat stacks of rock and boulders. I am in darkness with your legs and chest, your shoulders. But your head remains aloft above the gray, in the sun. You squint, uncomfortable.
This, I think, this is something.
Quiet.
I made a list. It starts with "the sky at the end of a storm when the sun still isn't out and the rain is just seconds away from ending", next to the number one.
It ends with "that perfect amount of space between me and you, the sun in your eyes on a quiet summer day, as we walked, on our mission - Kisame".
Next to the number two. I found it an appropriate number.