Even now, as I think of leaving, I wonder about all the beautiful stories bottled up in the minds of friends I’ve made, still unwritten–they, too, have tied their love together and thrown it into the big, blue thing. My sailor-tongued sisters, my comrades-in-arms. Our shipwrecks are floating. I like the way straw kisses straw, the way you can raise the sails even as you are about to lock the loving thing away. I try to keep my balance, know when to jump off. Whatever excites you in a person is never the thing you expect.