Flashback to Then

Rain dripping down the window panes

Flash back to when we met

Rain matting hair against my face

And your warm arms picking me from the curb

You wrap your arm around my waist

And pull the blanket higher up

As we watch the screen, caught up in the story

The boy pulls his girl closer, brushes her hair away

Flash back to when you hugged me tight

And drove me to my home in the middle of the night

When all I needed was to choose flight

Elvis Presley on your stereo, serenading us as we went

My head against your chest, didn't even know your name

But you drove on and didn't stop, even when I slid off

And fell asleep on your lap

You brush my hair down and kiss my head

Bending to whisper in my ear,

"Remember that night?"

The night I truly took flight

We drove throughout the night, sometime you must have pulled over

I woke with that blanket wrapped around me,

Your Ford F100 standing out from all the modern pick-ups, at the side of the road

And the moment I moved, your eyes opened and you smiled down at me

We stopped at my grandparents' front gate, it stood open

You drove in, then helped me from the car, and I loosed my hair

I brushed it through with my fingers and straightened my clothes

You bent down and whispered, "You look beautiful, right now, right here"

As the rain pelts down harder, a storm rumbling in the distance

You bend over again and kiss my cheek,

Then whisper, "You look beautiful, right now, right here"

Messy hair, bloodshot eyes from binge-watching movies

Fingertips stained with paint and ink

Haven't slept in fifty plus hours, cried only two hours ago

The ending was too beautiful, the death too sad

Doesn't matter whether I am an ogre princess

Or the dreaded cloud of despair in the morning

Seems that no matter what I do or how I look

You look past it and see the beauty inside