Last summer was punctuated with your comma smiles,
the words formed from the sounds of lazy afternoons spent with friends -- TV marathons and poolside reading --
that filled the time in between nights parked in the driveway talking
(because goodbye was imminent, but we kept it at bay).
Everything was uncertain and undecided,
but wonderful just the same.
I spent hours afterwards
trying to understand the disparity
between the way you looked at me
(and the way I froze under your gaze)
and the things you said
(or, rather, didn't say).
When your world shattered,
my heart, too, broke along with it
(empathy is a side effect of losing someone you love,
as you now know)
and I tried to pick you back up after you had fallen.
It was a summer of unknowns,
my life just on the perch of a thousand firsts,
and I clung to your familiarity.
The dreamy haze of it all was blown away
when reality came storming in,
but I still find ghosts of it
in this summer's busy days, particles of that old magic
dotting the nights like fireflies
(and I find myself awake and at the door, late at night, to let in Nostalgia and entertain him).