Oh how bittersweet a moment such as this is, knowing never again
will I lay my lips on yours, cup my hand in your hand and wrap myself in your arms, only because you said, somehow from this
we can both be happy.

I do not understand, I will never understand.

I only said that if you were unhappy, I wouldn’t make you stay.

You must let go of that which you love, for keeping it and loving it will not make it love you in return.

I suppose sacrifices such as these are humbling.

They hurt, but remind me I am still human.

I kept the roses you gave me
on our first Valentine’s day
Even though they’re dried out now
and crumbling away
Somehow they smell even sweeter
even after all this time
And every whiff reminds me, I’m still
yours and you’re still mine.

Day after day,
sun after sun,
moon after moon,
you and I become one.

Grown together like roots,
our strength runs years’ deep.
I promise you my heart,
for yours to keep.

Entangled in your arms,
you I wrap around,
like roots of a great tree
deep in the ground.

Not the wearing of water
or the roaring of wind
could ever break us
in two again.

I get it, being in the driver’s seat means that you can do nothing but
stare forward, the whole way.

But I’m in the passenger seat and I’m just along for the ride.

I find calm in knowing even if I let the universe move me, I’m still moving.

I’m watching the orange skies and purple clouds pass overhead
without a worry in the world.

I wish you could see them, too.

Spring came and went with
the sweet smell of flowers
and the sound of chirping swallows.

Summer melted away beneath
the sun’s beating rays.
We watched her go slowly like
a sunburn fading to tan.

Fall flew by, like a leaf caught
by the autumn wind, gone without
so much as a whisper.

Now that winter is here, I am
left waiting for the next repetition,
but the days drag on, the cold lingers,
and time stands still beneath the snow.

Repetition everywhere
in bookshelves and tiled walls
and the yellow striped down the street.
Repetition everywhere
in staircases and stitches
and cornstalks.
Repetition everywhere
in tree-rings and theater seats
and blinds and whitened teeth,

Repetition everywhere.

For hours we have driven
down dusty, dirt roads passing
one after another, the rotting animals,
flattened to the pavement.
I count them, one, three, seven, ten.
It’s a means of passing time and
getting you off my mind, momentarily.

You sit in the passenger seat with the
map flattened against the dash and
your navy ball cap pulled low.
The roadkill becomes sidelined when
I realize, the dead animals are not the
ones running from something,
running from another greater animal,
a predator, only to meet death on this
decrepit highway.
I am the one running, driving seventy-five
miles an hour from a predator I cannot
escape no matter how fast I drive.
I am the prey.

The scenes outside the window no longer
tell a tale of death, but one of freedom,
freedom from the hunt, the chase.
You’ve mentioned before what you feel
for me, and though, we’ve known each
other for years, anything more than
friends would surely ruin us.
This little trip we took for summer
fun leads nowhere good, leads to a place
from which I doubt we will return the same
as we left.
I know once we reach our destination,
you’ll go in for the ****
and I won’t stop you.