I smile like dead cities sometimes, the ones
that have lights crawling along the skylines
like centipedes with dim legs but you should
know, you’ve seen me hide in the morning fog.

He used to find himself along the curvatures
of her chapped lips, he told her that he liked her raspy
voice blown out of her throat because it made her
smile look more beautifully familiar.

She always laughs like taxis stuck in downtown traffic,
the ones the tourists always confuse for welcoming
store lights on stormy, dark days; I was meant to
be gone with haste but instead I sit, inviting strangers
into my prison with skulls for walls and my impatient,
lukewarm laughter innocently seduces your heart wet
from the dismal rain. You really don’t know this, do you?

He used to turn his head when she laughed because her
voice reminded him of a beauty he could never achieve,
and she always believed him because he was the one who
told her she had a broken heart that could be healed  
but his love for incomplete souls was real, he said.

But you tell me my wandering days are what makes me
shine like raindrops with the sun rays caught in their bodies -  
you tell me I am a pioneer with a goal, with a hint of ambiguous
transparency and for all the seconds unspent, I will believe you.
Because of something as simple as love.