I lost you many years ago. 
Why do you still make me lose time?
Why it befell on me 
this need to immortalize
our awkward tongue pirouette?
Because it was the only real thing
we shared, which is now
frozen in continuum?
Because your words, 
your meaningless symbols
masqueraded as
verisimilitudes of unending affection?
Because I still hope that
you will come back?

Tracing the 
blanched blotched skin on my burnt leg
takes me back to the days of
undulating cotton skirts and unblemished skin
under some summer sun.

The cigarette hanging precariously
on the edge of that mouth. 
Those pursed lips exhaling smoke
and pouring my bedroom 
with the sick sweet smell of marijuana. 
Playing a body contortionist, eyes closed
to the beats of my favorite song. 
Dancing the last dance. 
And that wicked grin
playing no wicked games. 

Between wistful delirious visions of you
and the present unambiguous with your
absence,
sanity beckons.
And so I wait for your face to slowly
dissipate like the smoke
from your lit joint.

They were a thousand miles apart.
They had a petty fight.
So he sent her a parcel.
In it was an envelope
home to a green origami paper
saying just those three words
I love you
written in the shabbiest handwriting
in the thinnest strokes of a blue ballpoint pen. 

He's incredulously stupid. 
said she
as a slight, bashful half-smile quivered on her lips.

If I could only split open my chrysalis of fear
I could then soar
like the two banana colored butterflies in tandem
their course creating love ellipses in the rose-tinted sky.

The sun is beating down 
The wind is blowing
The leaves are swaying 
flashing brilliant beautiful illuminated greens 
The red prickly pears are in full bloom
It is a beautiful day.  

Inside, it is black and grey and cold.
The angst of unfulfilled dreams.
The anguish of unrequited love.
This bitterness, this resentment
is locked in huge icebergs of darkness.

But
When I sing off-key tunes at the top of my lungs
or lead the addling muddling trains of thought
on a path of fruition
or gulp down a beautiful day
do these icebergs thaw.
Little by little.

And slowly, I let the spring come in.

I hope when I dig deep inside my heart
to see what lies there
I find endless glitter and confetti. 
And only when enough pressure has build up in the core of my being
That an endless streamlined sparkle will burst through my walls 
or consume me entirely
when I explode into gazillion tiny strips of scintillation
and watch your ablution with pieces of me.