(according to us)
Me (the dyslexic one, in San Diego):
📱 “The sunset is melting like mango sherbet over the ocean…”
Sherbit? Sherbet? You know what I mean.
You (the colorblind one, in San Francisco):
📱 “Mango? I see… well, I think it’s… beigeish? Or maybe pale gray. Definitely not mango.”
Me:
📱 “No! Like… strawberry ice cream melted into pumpkin soup.”
You:
“That sounds unappealing. Also, strawberries are red, right?”
Me:
📱 “Yes, but wait, I think it’s more like giggle-orange. You’d laugh if you could see it.”
You:
📱 “I am laughing. But I still see beige.”
Me:
📱 “Okay, fine. It’s like the sky’s wearing pink pajamas.”
You:
📱 “I’ve never seen pink pajamas. To me, they’d be… light gray pajamas.”
“Is it like that time we painted your living room and you called it ‘sunrise beige’ and it was actually purple?”
Me:
“That was the paint can’s fault! Also, maybe my brain sees purple as beige sometimes.”
You:
“And maybe my eyes see orange as beige sometimes.”
Me:
📱 “I think I’m trying too hard to craft poetry here. You know, write?”
You:
📱 “I know. And now I’m hungry with all this fruit talk.”
Then, somewhere between pink pajamas and paint debates, we stop texting—
And call instead.
Long pauses, as we stare at the same setting sun,
400 miles apart.
Me:
“It feels like the color of warmth—if warmth had a color.”
You:
“Like hugs. The purple-smelling ones.”
Me:
“Okay… maybe the perfect sunset is the one we’re looking at right now.”
You:
“Even if we don’t agree on the colors?”
Me:
“Especially then.”
We’re just watching a perfect sunset for each other
apart
but together.
The light fades, whatever color it is.
It’s soft. Slow. Ours, and maybe yours too.
We stay there,
listening to each other’s breathing,
feeling the closeness of the sun.
Then the real questions arrive:
“What does bright mean to you?”
“When I say golden, do you imagine coins or light?”
“If you can’t see pink the way I do… what does love look like for you?”
Pause. Breeze. Breath. Senses.
You:
“The air is soft here… like someone turned the volume down on the day.”
Me:
“Yeah. My shoulders just dropped. I didn’t even notice they were tense.”
You:
“The breeze smells faintly like the ocean, even up here in the hills.”
Me:
“I can hear kids playing outside. The sound is warm, if that makes sense.”
The sun dips lower.
Shadows stretch like slow dancers.
Suddenly, we’re both just… quite quiet.
Pat Lezama 