You were like the flowers
dying on my kitchen table.
Wilting away, and even so,
gifting me with flashes of color
and the unceremonious bloom
of a forgotten bud.

You were like Billy Holiday
at 3am on my busted record player;
just the slightest hiccup
in your melancholy.

You were an insufferable
embodiment of self-doubt,
nearly tangible in the
sun-starved days of winter.

You were an enigma,
plain and simple,
as nondescript as the fog
before a sunrise in September.