Your kindness has killed me.

It wasn't too sweet, not saccharine,
you came with a hint of lemon-sharp smiles
and mischievous eyes, cheek slipping off your tongue
to fall on my skin like a bluntly barbed-caress,
each laugh a knife that cuts me to remember.
I barely knew you but even so, I think it was enough
to slip into loving him who I perceived you to be.

Connections bring out the worst in me.
Sitting next to you, dark brown eyes
that light up too readily, lips turning at the corners
and a laugh that brings out mine, instinctively.

Secrets shared and confidences brokered
as we lean in and whisper, co-conspirators
facing the world, as a unit we rise together,
my thoughts mirrored on his face.

Tongue in cheek exchanges and insults
parodied and paraded between cross-roads,
intersects as we dance verbally, smiles
all too often exchanged as I know, now,
that I am heading for the fall.

That one that I always anticipate, the one that
has only happened once before, excitement
coursing in my veins as I try to tell myself stop,
think, take a breath and see the wall where this ends.

I can't help it though, his presence is like lightning,
as I glow from within enjoying this brief moment.
Desolation brews, but it is future-bound and I give
myself to the moment, pleasure paid for with future pain.

He is not mine, nor will he ever be,
we will never dance again and our eyes will not meet.

I am trying to find pleasure in past moments
but now gravity claims me, my loss is only my own,
as he falls back into the non-existence from whence he came
and all that now remains is the absence of him.

And yet his eyes are a certain shade of dreaming.

He looked down sadly
Staring at his hands
"I'm covered in heart break."
I touched his arm
And he looked up at me
"I know."
"Its the color of your eyes."
"I know that, too."


.

A woman asked me
How it felt to see my lover again
And I found myself
Most inconveniently out of words, darling
My mouth opened
I almost said
Being with him
Is like Summer rain
In the Sahara
Or the first sip of water taken
By a thirsting man
Like the cool feeling of grass beneath bare feet
In the spring
The smell of blooming Wisteria  
Like a bonfire in Autumn
The sound of leaves falling from the trees
It is like the first snow of winter
Blanketing the world in white
Or the the steam from a cup of tea
But instead I smiled
And closed my eyes

"It was everything I needed it to be."


.