FerrisWheels

against tides
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The ferris wheel stops for a moment and we catch our breath. We are looking east over the somehow scrawny skyscrapers of downtown, the heads of the crowds toward Denver International Airport's whitecaps in the distance. We start swinging slowly in unison, the metal rocking beneath us as the car slowly lifts and then jerks swiftly to a stop. The lip of the car hits my neck, hits the swell of your back. I lean into the warm yellow plastic. Look up into the sky. Look, I say, you can see where the moon will rise. You laugh.

We gaze at the cloud strewn horizon, wondering what is real and what is merely water vapor. We still swing softly, slowly. Your hand grasps mine.

I love you, you say. Your voice is smiling and I shrug into your arm, now protecting my head from the shiny stickiness of bare plastic.

I look at you. Loving you is something that I no longer question. That isn't why I haven't given you an answer. It's not why I am hesitating, my lips unwilling to form the words, yes. Love is definitely not the issue.

The issue is living with you. Being there again through thick and thin, better or worse, richer or poorer. Which is a promise I have made before. And one I wasn't able to keep then.

What makes me think I can keep it now? Why do I think I can swim against the tides of fate yet once more?

I say nothing.

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