Girls and perfume

it smells like toast and floral perfume, the scent is almost colorful as I pass Toree who is painting a mermaid in the living room for her boyfriends surfboard. I put an artichoke in boiling water and outside the window air mixes pink and orange like tie dye in the sky of Silverlake. Upstairs Cassandra tip toes organizing candles as Ashley naps in her white down cloud bed. I stand on the roof patio looking at the pink water balloons in the kiddie pool that the girls threw into our neighbors party the night before.
If you could see happiness it would be dark wood wrapping around candle lit corners, thin floral gauze draped and spilling across the floor. It would be milk bubbling as you pour it into a large mixing bowl, animals quiet in the sun in the front yard, a brown beautiful back curled without covers on a hippie sheeted bed in the middle of summer. If you could see happiness it would be tie dyed- maybe in the back yard of your Dads friends party 12 years old wringing out your favorite white tee that’s soaked up all the easter colors you have separated into silver bowls. It would be crying and the tears would be that small pond you remember from when you were growing up.
The palm trees are pulled hard, dancing with the wind and the remains of girls sunning lay strewn about on lawn chairs and pink towels. We invite ourselves into our own beds on a Sunday, comforter covers in the wash I underline Weetzie Bat for Cassandra.
If love could be measured it would be elastic and ever changing. It would be a trip to the moon as far as the sun. It would be like a sick body temperature rising and falling.
I wish I could see everybody cry. Maybe then we would all be human for each other real life breaking, buckling. Vulnerability, rejection, loss, happiness... I don’t think I’ll ever see boys like I see girls. All different colors twisted together and lay out like the sky.