The early summer breeze gusts past my skin
A smile rises on my lips
I gaze at you
The warm, orange sunrise eclipses your face
and tints your rosy cheeks
Oh, how mesmerizing, you are

I gently squeeze your hand,
caressing your skin
A silent oath to cherish you for eternity
Your finger twitches in my grasp,
earning a small flinch from me
My head swings down at you
The amber sky and clouds drift past
in the glaze of your distant eyes
Along with my restored smile,
a faint, reassured sigh emits from my nose
Four years later, your little quirks still bewitch me

Enchant me

Captivate me

Seagull’s squawks echo in the sky as they glide past the terrain
Freezing cyan waves of ocean suddenly wash around our legs,
pulling the tawny sands with it
You’ve always adored the beach
Hence, our presence here today
A surprise outing for the fourth anniversary of knowing you
Four years you’ve graced me with
the astonishing, enchanting entity that is,
You.

Since our initial encounter,
our paths were forevermore entwined,
in the manner in which, you simply can not mention one,
without mentioning the other
My lips slide over my teeth
I stare at your figure between my knees
Your outstretched, limp arms gradually sink in the damp sands
Your dull irises absently watch the golden orb rising in the sky
Your essence bubbles from your mouth
I take my thumb, wiping it away

As my final gift to your ethereal soul,
your red sands will spill from your form
in beautiful tendrils of crimson
And just as the yellow dunes,
destined to eternal the lands

One day I’ll open my eyes
And feel relief.

It won’t ache,
And for the first time
In a Long time,
Sadness will not be my only belief.

For the first second
I won’t think about it.
I will open my eyes
And see the sun.
I will hear the birds,
And I will feel their peace.

I will bathe in the beauty
That surrounds me.
Skin soft. Thoughts soft.
My life won’t be on lease.

One day I’ll open my eyes,
And feel
Relief

We read our books and pretend to
not make glances at each other.
We smile as if the pages in the book had tickled at our sides.
We write love stories in our heads and forget about the ones on the page.
An uncomfortable warmth surrounds us as we pretend not to pose ourselves in our chairs.
As if we are offering ourselves to the sun to immortalise this youthful love.
Our hands quiver as we turn each page.
Like these stories will ours come to a brief
end?
And though you and I are nothing,
destined for
deletion,
taunted by
extinction.
We pray that these feelings are more than that.
But when I see the stars in your eyes my worries float away,
for I know this love is cosmic.

Breathing in, I dwell
deeply in this moment
Breathing out, I know,
it is the perfect moment

Breathing in, I see
it is an only moment
Breathing out, a moment
that's truly one of a kind

For appearances may
delude one into thinking
"This is nothing new
it has all happened before"

But the discrete events of THIS "now"
have never happened before
in precisely the same way
and they never will again

and though a moment may
be filled with pain or anger or despair
Just like the moment itself
these will also disappear

So too, a moment may
be filled with rapture, bliss, and joy
but as with the moment again
these will also disappear

Breathing in with this in mind
to what is there to cling?
Breathing out with this in mind
from what am I repelled?

Breathing in with this awareness,
I see each moment is a miracle
Breathing out with this awareness
a smile sweeps across the face

Breathing in, I'm here
Breathing out, I'm now
Breathing in I don't desire
Breathing out I'm free

Not the girl you meet
Down at church or the local store
Not the girl you catch a glimpse of
Small twinkles in the iris-
Flashes of home

  more of a 2 am blue

Visceral red lights
Chinatown
Buhwick laughter and red solo cups

More of a dark revel in the
Unknown
More of a midnight train into
Where you have not yet
Dared to roam.

More of a fleeting feeling, less of
A rooted tree.

More of the one
That almost was but wasn’t quite
More of a blurred 2 am night.

Not the one you take home-

More of the one you found

when lost
And forlorn.

Tommy guns for insurance
And wads of sweaty cash
To build new empires with

But there are no guarantees
Crime, you see, doesn't pay
You can bank on it

So we already know how it ends:
They canceled his policy
And Dunaway with her