i hung myself
from your lips
the first time
we kissed,
a transcendent
moment, shining
effervescent
as the sun.

love was the rope
i wound into a noose
on that rooftop.
an audience of stars
looked on, voyeurs
lightyears beyond.

years have lapsed since then,
but i return invariably
to those moments we spent
absorbed to the point of ecstasy
as if time were a flat circle
and i was meant to live eternally
caught between the fragments
of those seconds.

fixated by the temporary transgressions
we permit ourselves
every few months.
revolving like a planet
tethered to its star
by the insistent arms of gravity.
we're partners in crime, stealing borrowed time,
trying in vain to recreate
the first fissures
of a friendship
that fractured our lives
like a fragmentation grenade.

consistently,
i become convinced,
as time moves on
and i remain transfixed,
that maybe i was meant to love
but not be loved in return.