Fold

"The thumbs-up-react is actually a war crime," I texted.

This was in response to me using the question-mark-react, to which you said, "the question mark react is an act of terror."

This is how I want to fold. At first, when I said 'I'm folding,' I meant like a fitted sheet: loose, unstructured, but still crumpling, and soft. But I really meant the way time folds when you remember sights and smells together. I meant the way I long to fold myself into the smallest possible piece to fit inside your luggage and your jetpack when you travel. When I want to find you, I can fold time, fold distance, fold oceans in a half and then a quarter. Only the thickness of the fold will keep us apart and wondering. If one of us can fold, and the other can reach, we will be a Midwest-to-Caribbean romance. If both of us can fold, we will stamp the back-pages of thirty books we'll read to enmesh our experiences, mine a Flatbush Prince of motion sickness, yours a broken-brained, super artist causing nerve damage in yourself and the world.

When I fold anything, it can be precious and preserved but stored for a later time. I can't fold you, then, because you're needed here and now under the equatorial sun. You're needed in the seams of the two books I brought along to remind me I'm a writer and should/need to record the experience. In my not-yet-novel, the characters' experiences fold into each other, like in one of those messy caper movies where the criminals have to coordinate exits in sync or get nabbed. The timing of you could not be better/worse because the time folds over and into lapels, bed skirts, love notes, etc.