Visions of a backlit childhood
Of golden-haired halos and shadowed eyes
Slideshow in flashes of painful yesterdays
For those still unfamiliar
Longing to hold the child as he cries
Those tears cannot fall in confusion's void
And fear darkens all roads 'can be seen
Still here, in their nightmare,
Like it was my own
Is a truth told in smiles and jellybeans
Long since gone away

There in the closeness
A hairs breadth away seems a million light-years
The sweetest air fills lungs in hurried breaths
A quickened heartbeat drowns out the world
The mind twists and sways in thoughts that soon become a blur
Melded into emotion, into heat
And time stands still

Drawn like magnets to fill the gap
That electric blue spark lingers behind a gaze
Current runs high
Feeling the blood rushing through the smallest veins
Every cell electrified, every hair on end
The weakening of unwanted defenses
That moment the body and soul acquiesce
And time stands still

In the stroke of a cheek
The almost intangible sensation of gliding on smoke
Rising as the embers burn from within
And each breath fans the flames
Proximity feeds passion
As time stands still

The past, erased methodically, deliberately
For there is only this
This birthing of eternity
This moment when the tentative brushing of lips
Burns into soulful coalescence
This one reality
This moment
When time stands still

The outline of lips puckered in the bright pink hues of lust
The slow blink of a gaze that drinks in a vision
The gentle touch that ignites the fire
The air heated slowly with growing anticipation
The love that infuses a soul

He found it in a box of things of days gone by
Took it out and loved it though it was old and missing an eye
He took it to his bedroom and tucked it into bed
He gave it his favorite pillow to rest its weary head
When I tucked him and saw my oldest childhood friend
I was torn inside of memories of days that had to end
I took it from its resting place and hugged it to my heart
Tattered and ragged I tried my best to fix its broken parts
A new eye and some sutures, fixing all its wounds of old
I tucked it back inside the sheets so it wouldn't feel the cold
When he awakened in the morn, he came running in to me
Holding up the teddy bear who was fixed miraculously
I told him that it was my very best buddy when I was a child
And asked if I could hold it once, for just a little while
I told him how his eye was lost thanks to a neighbors dog
And how I dragged him through the woods chasing hopping frogs
And then he said how he was fixed all like magic overnight
And I said that's because he found a friend to hold him tight
So now he has my bestest bud from seeming eons past
And he was healed in loving arms of a new friend meant to last

In black and white across the screen
The sun, peeks over the mountainside
The bright white orb shines through the black leaves
The sky in light gray
And it's the dawn of a new day
One picture snapped on a whim
And hope is caught on the horizon
The camera blinks in time with perfection
Emotion caught on a breeze
A view into the soul of the man behind the moment
There is peace in this place
A picture, a snapshot of insight
An infusion of peace
And the smile on the face of a stranger looking at a screen

removed due to publishing rights

Will repost at the end of contract term.

Thank you for reading

:-)