When I picture your face,
I see dancing clouds
And ringlets of light.
Your hair is edible,
Your eyes are swimming pools,
Your lips are ruby ring pops with
Skin like cotton candy.

And I can't seem to shake the image.
Or the heart-stuttering effect,
It leaves me.

I built you up so much in my mind
That when I fall asleep,
I imagine your skin on mine.
The soft, cool,
Goose bump inducing touch;
The sinful, chocolate cake kind of touch.

I wake up in a cold sweat
Invigorated by the thought of you,
Intoxicated by your breath;
It's a cigarette while I wake,
Still in a fog filled land
Believing my dreams are memories.

The faces I see and bodies I meet
Are merely shadows of your face,
Reflections of a reflected memory.
Their lips are curdled milk;
I miss the sharp, hard, strawberry taste
You used to leave,
Lingering,
On my lips.

Their skin no longer melts
From my kiss,
It is hard plastic
disguised as a sugary cloud;
It is marble and you are clay.
Every touch is a salted paper cut,
Every fingertip pin-*****
Is a jilted memory.

I cannot fall into their eyes,
They are not wading pools
Filled with champagne;
They are shallow and *****.
I don't get lost for days,
And weeks,
And months,
And years in them,
Just my balance is gone
From jumping too fast.

So fast,
My knees go through the ground
And up through my chin
Simultaneously.
Or worse I get caught
In a quicksand sludge
I thought was a path leading home
No branch long enough can pull me out.

I am stuck with this version of you,
The one where you walk
With a glowing outline--
Like you're a renaissance painting or something.
Where every song I hear,
Somehow,
Has your name in it
And sounds just how your laugh used to.

This image of you,
Where I see into the future
And I’m still there.
As if I’m not going mad,
But that’s the only explanation
To why I feel like a ghost
In purgatory
Reliving every kiss
And moment that never was.