Christopher Columbus Park Descriptive Writing

I'm sitting on a bench in Christopher Columbus Park. The wooden planks at my back are faded from a combination of sun and sea-breeze, and under my fingers are lover's carvings. Names, initials, crooked hearts, equations that end in forever. The last time I was here, I was eighteen. Maybe back then, I would have seen the beauty in it all. Right now, I pass my fingers over the gouges in the wood and hope I don't get a splinter.

I sigh softly, leaning forward and hanging my head. One hand dangles between my knees, my fingers twitching gently; the one that had been tracing outlines of love on the bench now supports my chin, my elbow balanced on my thigh. I close my eyes for a few moments, my mind quieting and the world ceasing to exist, save for the gentle late summer breeze that kisses my cheeks.

I have no idea how long I sit like this; I am comfortable and have no reason to move. The air is cool, the city surprisingly calm for a late Friday
While I look down at it, I think of a boy I once knew, of how, for a short time, he was a dash of color in my monochrome world. I think of how I drew him flowers; how one morning, he stood silently behind me and watched me draw them with a broken pen; how he swiped the card I drew them on away from me and held it close to his eyes, smiling, telling me how much he liked them. I remember going home that night and painting flowers the same strawberry pink as the tulip resting in my fingers, and I remember drawing those flowers again in black and white a week later. Those I drew on an envelope with his name written in large cursive letters in the middle. Inside was a goodbye I knew I wouldn't have been able to give him in person, and sure enough, when the time came to see him leave, all cohesive thought was drowned in tears that began to spill the second he brought me into his