Shrunken, silly, stainless. We were taught that we sensed the world in five different ways. As pretend farm animals, we’d nibble at the grass to know what the colour green tasted like. Now I see it whenever she smiles, my jealousy caught between her teeth. If only they sold measuring tapes which read the sincerity of a smile. It’s not measured by distance, I know this because once I knew a lady who had the smallest of smiles, just a slight upturning of the mouth. She wasn’t picturesque in the usual sense but the edges of her eyes and corners of her mouth would crinkle when she was joyful and so much light trickled through the cracks on her face.  
Back to the farm yard, I saw a pink tongue as she overtook us in the lay-by. You see, I get a second place ribbon because I just know she goes on adventures when I travel home.     Her guy sometimes lingers. He does not smile the way she does but once, I saw all his teeth lined up neatly for me. (His footsteps make no sound). When our pupils line up I wonder why, if I’m looked at because I’m a part of the scenery, like wallpaper, a clock on the wall, or if I’m sought out like someone desperately seeking the time, the right time. Seeing him is the relief of waking up one hour before the alarm. If only they sold measuring tapes which read the secrets of eyes. 
Holding on. Going back. These are finger-print tellings, no masterpieces, simply put: I’ve reverted back to colour because I cannot calculate these shapes, she is green and he paints me blue. I’m creating ugly fiction in my head.

I feel as if I do not have the right to write you down.

I will take them to the sea while they are young enough to soak up the blue,
show them the way the world can tickle their backs. We will have cooking lessons on the day the storms decide to crash against their rib cages instead of the cliff faces without a warning signal and my hands will look just like my mother’s when I reach out to catch the racing water which lands on their cheeks. I’ll imagine myself a connoisseur when I decipher whether I can taste sorrow or delight. Is there a reason for these tears? Perhaps there will be a five chapter narration or a short spluttered verse, a vague ramble, perhaps there will be no back story to explain the channel of emotion. I will ask them what they taste, what it reminds them of. Don’t you see? All the time soaking up the salty sea can release itself, cause watery eyes and pour like the rain when you least expect it. 

I have made oceans of unexplained tears.