Lost one welcomed home
Strangers at one point
Recognizing minds
And words spoken prior
Beats unheard for years
Distance silenced
A vibe not skipping
Synchronized
Familiar eyes gaze
She smiles
I melt

-AJT

How am I dry
When years of anticipation are melting like a glacier?
All I’ve ever wanted
Is standing at the end of my bed
With his cold hands
pulling apart my thighs
So why am I fighting so hard
To get out of my head?
When he looked into my eyes
I saw guilt staring back at me.
When he kissed my lips,
He hated that they tasted unmistakably mine
And not of his lovers.
Our timings never been “okay”,
I should have taken that as a sign
To keep this a fantasy.

my love for you will age
like your mother's finest wine
growing only richer with the passing of time

I keep it closed and locked,
In an imaginary, leather binding,
With its many pages compressed,
So that memories far apart
Are easier to retrieve,
Like scooping pearls
and shells on the sand.
There are stories of great adventure,
Tiny incidents like crystals
Shivering in the sun.
Lovers I knew in ancient times
Sleep among the pages
But come to life as I read,
My eyes caressing them as
My hands once did their skin.
Colors of eyes and hair remembered
Leap to paint the air around me:
Yellow sunlight and bodies moving,
Both electric and languid
In tangled sheets or long grass
After passion passed.
Some flashed like fireworks,
But others burned long and slow,
Not ready to love, nor to let go.
Smiles across a playing field,
Surprise midnight visits on holidays,
Costumed for Halloween with tiny stars
That shimmered on the stairs next morning,
Or inebriate feasts on the Fourth of July,
Tanned in the water and soothed at night.
There are short liaisons with friends
And long affairs, living with lovers,
Imagining it lasting forever
And battling the serious and inane.
Thinking everything will say the same.
And underlining all these times
Is the solidity of just one true love.

Finished November 14, 2021

From week in to week out,
the cracks in foundation do form,
and the ceiling begins to leak;
should those in the castle's embrace choose to evacuate?

The lovers huddle in the stillness of their room and contemplate their position,
but something crumbling so quickly needs an equally quick decision.

Dare they take a break and flee from the impending ruin?
And what does it say about them if the structure of their loving home won't support them?

And if the lovers falter
from the tower to the uneasiness below,
will there be enough arms to catch them both?