To Live in the Moment

To live in the moment

Is to place it on the tip of your tongue

The way you’d savour a grain of sugar

And all the sweetness you can get out of it.

To live in the moment

Is to resist folding that precious dress after wearing it once

And throwing it in the closet. Instead,

Hanging it up so you can revel in it

Over and over. To live in the moment

Is to laugh aloud and then pause for a second

So you can remember what it felt like.

To live in the moment

Is to keep your best friend’s head on your shoulder

And yours on top of hers. And in the empty, moving train,

Even as you fall asleep, realizing that your heart

Has never been fuller. To live in the moment

Is to take that sleepover in the palm of your hands

And stretch out the hours as you lie on the bed

Talking about nothing till the temple bells ring.

And then you fall asleep holding hands

Against the sunrise. To live in the moment

Is to hold his hand by the mere tips of your fingers

In the dark, when you can’t risk

Holding it all the way through. To live in the moment

Is walking to the grocery store, holding and swinging

Your father’s hand, even at seventeen. To live in the moment

Is to place your head in your mother’s lap when you have

That terrible cold. To live in the moment

Is to eat Maggi sitting on the floor of your best friend’s house

And laughing yourselves silly

Till you can’t sit up or talk or breathe. To live in the moment

Is to watch the sunset with her, your silhouettes against the sky,

And realizing how much you’d hate it when she leaves. To live in the moment

Is to take the sunflower she got you and place it in a glass of water

Even while knowing that it’s going to die soon.

To live in the moment

Is to feel like begging them all to stay, all this love you make with

All these people

That make you. And then realizing that these moments

Were never ‘forever’ to begin with. Because some homes are only made

To be lived in for a second, to be

Enjoyed, remembered, and replayed,

Even while you’re still in them.

So, to live in the moment

Is to capture them all

Like little pieces of a film reel

And making a badly directed movie – the camera shaking

With the way you laugh or ache or breathe or smile or make

The most

Out of a second

Of life.