My love, I still wish I could pull you close,
my hand along the curve of your spine,
and kiss your cheek, feel
you blush underneath my lips
and run my fingers through your hair,
all the while remaining open to you
--if you were to whisper to me a suggestion
that we might run away together
and leave everything else behind,
and our hearts would race because
we just might do it.
But love,
as I pine away after you,
I wonder if I'm more than this infant
who can plot and scheme to conquer your heart
but who at the end would relinquish all pride
to kick and scream.
I don't want
what we had,
each of us with our agendas
so in the shape of each other
that I'm sure it's been ages since I've seen
into your eyes and since you've seen
into mine.
My love, all I want is to find the courage to love again,
and so I pray that some bravery exists within
the heart of this goodbye, in which I wish you the same.

I wonder what it would feel like,
with a lover's heart beating against mine,
the natural sweetness of the oils in her hair,
her hand, perhaps with one scar or another
and chipped nail paint--touching my cheek,
and her breath alive and endearing
with warm air, petite lungs breathing easily,
and maybe with a reflexive glance upward to me
flashing brilliantly beautiful
in a brief moment of thoughtlessness where the reality is
she's surrendered her very being
without intending to and without regret,
for she feels safe enough not to hold her heart
in her own hands, and I safe enough
to let her hold mine, and I tell her
that I've known no greater joy than to give her
everything I am.

It must be so much more beautiful
than wrapping my fingers around the hand of a fantasy,
which in my desperate grip crumples
like the paper on which I drafted
her every perfect detail.

Your eyes are lost in a place with no answers--and I wonder how I could reach you.
I wonder how I could penetrate the surface of the ice.

And I understand that
the grief of your mother's passing and the grief of our lost life together
is churning within you and
in this hellish place, I imagine you are sitting alone.

A great sense of urgency overcomes me
every day
in every moment my mind is available to wander--and it does so,
seeming to be drawn to you; I feel

drawn to throw my body against the ice with the force of ten thousand Greek soldiers
against the walls of Troy. And it's only when I've got nothing left
save an indignant and animal desperation
that a reasonable voice echoes faintly in my head.

It pulls me back and suggests
that only a warmth within you
can possibly melt the barrier
between us.

With the animal urge still whimpering in half breaths and drooling spit
like a dying rodent, I whisper to you
that I'd be in there with you if I could, that I love you
and I'm so sorry I can't turn back time to correct for my foolishness.

My breath condenses upon the ice and instantly freezes,
leaving me alone in my own hell
where the reasonable voice tells me
that I will still live

if I never see you again.

A new day, another
just like all the rest
except that as I lay my eyes upon it
I can see the sunrise with clouds just so,
hues that never quite existed before,
and I breathe a breeze
as new as the skin in which I stand,
although it still feels just like it always has
as far back as I can remember.