stop what I’m doing at any moment and bake a cake. I might paint the house your three favorite colors. You’re so beautiful I might drink too much or I might never drink again. I might spend my life trying to convince movie producers to fund the story of you and how you walk the Earth, which is so wonderful. Let me put it this way: You’re so beautiful I’m going to stop attending community vigils and spend everything I’ve saved for the future on taking away people’s guns. You’re so beautiful it might end my life. It might make me a saint people pray to when they have lost control of their desire and wish to be washed away for good. You’re so beautiful I could finally believe in the beauty of being an impermanent being in an impermanent universe. So beautiful I would be happy being reborn as a patch of grass as long as it was near your patch of grass. You’re so beautiful I could quit my job in marketing and become a professional skateboarder. I could walk into the New York Philharmonic and take over as first-chair violin. You’re so beautiful I can see it through walls is what I’m saying. I can see it when you are miles away. You would be beautiful on any planet. One where rainbows and emeralds and van Goghs don’t ring a bell with anyone. You’re so beautiful I can’t stop comparing and measuring your beauty. You’re so beautiful I see that everything is beautiful. A mudslide. A wound. A dead raccoon. Lies and betrayal. The internal combustion engine. You’re so beautiful I realize that if you cook a meal for someone and don’t watch them eat what you’ve made then you’ve wasted your time. You’re as beautiful as a homerun, as beautiful as sleep. The world is so beautiful because your beauty is at home there. Days are beautiful. Years are beautiful. You are beautiful. Happy birthday if today’s your birthday. Happy Friday if it’s Friday. Good luck if you woke up and decided to try again today. Congratulations if you are alive in the world and one other person you love is also alive. 

For Charlie & Annabel