Life goes on.

Like an endless spiral of frayed thread hanging from your favorite dress.

Off the flower petal of the floral pattern that blows in the wind above your knees.

I'm going to write a novel about the one time we danced alone in my room.

We sat on my bathroom floor and you looked me in the eye and I was trying to figure out what you were thinking.

It took me awhile but finally, I realized you we're trying to think of anybody else that you would rather be there than me.

And you stared in my eyes.

5 seconds.
10 seconds.
30 seconds.
1 minute.
2 minutes.
and you couldn't think of anybody.

You wanted to so bad.
You wanted to think of anybody else that wasn't me.
But you couldn't.
And you hated it.
Because you did the one thing you said you would never do again.

You let me in.

You let me into the cage of doves that encased your glass heart.
And all I did was sit and watch it.
I became a dove.
You never let me out of your sight.
You wanted to make sure I didn't break it.
Then you decided to look away.
You looked back and I was still in the same spot, admiring you.
You still didn't trust me so I gave you my wings.
I didn't care about them now that I had you.
I didn't need the sky if you were on the ground.

You smiled and I loved you like breathing in mountain air.

I took that feeling and put it in a jar.
And I watched the firefly dance.
And I watched it die from lack of air.
And I watched your glow vanish.

Now the flowers are blooming.
Petals are falling off your hips and I'm still falling off your eyes, in the same way that leaves fall off the trees in Autumn.

Somehow, a night with no sleep and a cigarette reminds me of you.

In the same way that the headlights of a car read the lines of a road, I read your harlequin lips.

And I swear on all things that are good, you were the softest thing I kissed.

Wrapped in a thin layer of ivory.

I find my watch timeless.

I drip alcohol on some nights but not as many as "at first" but still enough as "end it" and I can never feel what it meant and how I meant it was to mean it. So, for now, so far, I've been taking my rib cage and hoping the bones don't break as I expand my lungs for a fresh breath of new skin and flesh. My tongue rams the back of my teeth in hopes to slither a word in edge wise as the bite becomes a copper numbness in the back of my throat.

I hope you know what decade I lost the hue in my eyes as it turned black and white like piano keys to my heart and soul.

I sit on the piano bench with skeleton fingers wondering why the graveyard is so quiet.

I look at old pictures and photographs and I replay moments in my head that sink into my chest like a ship that's been abandoned.

Someday or sometime soon.

I hope it never ends.

And I hope the flowers on your dress bloom again when Spring comes next year.