The flicker of fabric among our intertwined bodies.
How could something so faultless
Like the missing key, snuggly fitting my chest
Possibly be wrong?

Please hold me closer one last time.
Let me smell your ebbing love
That makes every hair on my body reach on end.

Just one last time, run your fingers through my hair
Like claws catching me again, and again.
Tell me to come nearer, and wrap your mind around me.

Don’t forget these extensions of us.

Before I know it, we will return to our posts—
Averting our eyes as we watch the world dance
And we struggle just to hold ourselves.

This guy walked into work today.
He smelled exactly like you.
Suddenly, I felt as fake as the strawberry-banana flavoring
In the frozen yogurt sample I was trying to give him.
He said, “thank you,” and walked away, just like you did.
“Thank you for the years, for the taste of what I could have had.”
You don’t like it? Want to sample something else?
Maybe then you can find who you’re looking for.
He smiled and walked away.
I knew I would never see him again.
He probably would never think of me,
And if he did,
it would be to wonder why that girl at the frozen yogurt shop
stood a little
too
close.

The moment of impact.
For an instant, you can hear the silence.
You can’t even hear my breathing.
Everything bursts forth--
The red, sweet liquid originating from the same point
Bursts to encompass all.
Did you see it?
The moment its flesh was pierced with lead?
It’s only the particles suspended in
air
that you remember.
You never saw them touch earth.
You only saw them floating
As if above us all.

He sat on the rug and doodled a house
Using his brand new crayons.
Red for the roof, blue for the walls, green for the door.
He drew his mommy and his daddy and a smiling sun.
No one heard the door’s handle click open.
He never heard the screams, because when they began
He was already down, hugging the ground
Still holding his crayons.
Still smiling.
His parents would never see that smile
When in a week, he would have opened his red firetruck for Christmas.
It would remain in a box
In his parents' closet,
Never to be opened.

Tell me you remember
Who I was that night
When you had your arm around me
And you laughed and held me tight.

Tell me you remember
Telling me about your dreams
About who you are, where you’ve been,
And who you want to be.

Tell me you remember
How you never left my side
Even though I was too shy to act
And I wounded your pride.

Tell me you remember
How you only wanted me
For one night, for one moment,
A dancing memory.

Tell me you remember
Though it’s brighter in the day
Even though you look right past me
And take thirty steps away.