I want you to have all of me
Something I don't know how to give
Never has there been a time
When the air fully released out my lungs,
Inviting complete truth and color

I want you to see it
Grow up with it surrounding you,
Like a warming blanket that makes you
Feel whole

I'm trying to teach my eyes to be more honest
My voice, to be soothing
So that you can know me
And know
When I say "you are so loved"
You'll believe it,
Always

You are invasive, and uninvited
Yet you appear every so often
Sometimes I wish I would wake,
So as to catch you, and ask you to leave
What reason could you have?
To dance and flutter about,
To remind me of a carved tree?

When my eyes open,
My thoughts are flooded,
The floor within, stained with mud from your visit
A sign of your passing
As you are invasive, and uninvited

I remember grass between my toes
Sun slapped wood, cooking
Thick fresh air,
Warmed after the long breath of fall
It would be hard to imagine excitement in a place that breeds calm,
but there we were, jitters and all

Summers ago,
We laughed and talked growing's gossip
And while you teased,  
I couldn't have been more enthralled

Years later, I returned,
To find you
And found you, I did
Your beauty, still the same,
one and all

You walked towards me,
Like you did with a smile,
and to this day
I thought of your lips in the light we first met

That day, though, I turned away
Out of embarrassment and shame
As it rained, I cleared out of sight, instead

9 years later,
You are gone but the memory still remains,
And I can't help but wonder if it were
different
But half a world away,
time flowered and it had its way,
As your kids are now grown and the world shifted

That summer we talked about love
Yet I only new your name,
We pieced together feelings on the dock of the lake
The last time I saw you,
I regret not smiling back,
And congratulate you on cutting the cake

I see your flower has grown tired
Wilting slightly under your hand's weight,
Time has stretched its pedals,
and moisture left its stem

I see it dreams of youth,
It clings to the memories of the suns drink
Thirsting, it stays dormant
resting,
Under the shade of your palm

I still feel your eyes locked to me
Imprinted, and stained behind the veil of years

More than the memory of  forgotten scents
More than time stacked upon
More than the sun and moon,
Dipping and flipping day after day

You could never know,
As the fading eye's light grows,
and at most trust's
as the chill brushes the cheek

So here, an Ode to you,
Once, more as a toast to the past
Where the light in my fading eyes grows,
and at most trust's
as the chill brushes the cheek