I looked into your eyes through shimmering teardrops
collecting into the birdbaths of my lids.

I found myself
among the endlessness of the universe.  Although
not cold, I searched for the stars I wished upon in the distance.  
No words shared.
My eyes were on a mission to figure out how this
galaxy wasn’t home.

You were ripped from
my heart
like a waxed strip on my hairy chest.  
What I mean is,
you removed the growth I had nurtured
and left an area bare and enflamed.  
And with the sharpened tongue
of words unsaid and undone,
your name was carved on a fresh bleeding heart
in shell shock.  
Added to a list of names I can’t speak without a stutter.  
Letters I read twice, like checking to see
if the iron is still hot and if my heart is still wounded.
The pain was  
tearing asunder memories that have not come to fruition, histories yet written, like pulling the nitrogen
from a fog blanket on the city.  

I unraveled the parts of my brain
that had strings to my heart.  
Your kisses became fingers shedding
the Onion layers of my soul.  
The outer layer was rough but sticky
and hard to cleanly remove.  
Each descending layer that followed was juicier and
commanded teardrops to come fleeing like refugees;
first wave, second wave,
then a full spring of unstoppable measure.  

And in your eyes I had moments saved
like zones on a video game.  
Each time we looked at each other to recount our progress,
life would give a small countdown and ask:
continue or quit?

I wept for each person I met with you.
My inner self found their files and
embraced each one with a letter of appreciation and
kissed them goodbye with my sincerest regrets.
My eyes sang them swan songs and promised to
cherish their memory like a scented candle
whose wick was snipped too short;
More could have been enjoyed
But what a lovely burn it was.