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Answer to Your Question


by Darryl Price


What is it, I think about all the time? You 
know what? Whatever it is, I want to place 
it on a tray and drop it to the forest 
floor, walk away into another blossoming
thought or two. I would have bet you and I 

would make it past the onslaught. It makes me kind 
of sad that I was so wrong. I took that picture 
of you when you were absolutely sure 
you weren't beautiful looking enough to be 
photographed. Your smile proved otherwise, the small 
tilt of your head, the blue color of your new 

paisley scarf, your softly rippling reflection on 
the green water next to the twin floating ducks. 
Those ducks were wild and free, but I saw you as 
the rarer creature. That was all the proof I 
finally needed to see to believe that 

magic is real. In a world of a billion 
different people, I saw your shape, your size, 
I felt your presence the most clearly of 
any other. I didn't ask to see you 
standing on your own like that. The universe 
never seemed to listen to me any way.
 
It just happened, naturally, like a slowly 
brightening sun through a gentle wind, waving 
a great gaggle of green leafy hands at the 
incoming day's sweet and innocent laughter. 
Somehow I just wasn't surprised at all. 

And then it started, erosions of the single 
light shining in upon you. Blind trust in 
a total stranger's grinning, fake flattery. 
The person in that picture wearing silly 
white puffy sleeves couldn't exist with the one
in the mirror. That's what kind of fool I am.

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