You found me
    the way fire finds the parched
    forests of California.
You caressed me
    the way waves caress the crumbling
    coast of every once-great
    Mediterranean city.
You whispered
    like the wind whispers sandstorms
    across the Sahara Desert.
You wept
    water-like into the fissures of my
    foundation

and froze

until I crumbled;
until I became a memory of myself;
a phantom limb;
a shadow in the dark.