Slowly and gradually, you'll start missing him
Slowly and gradually he'll be learning,
Learning to get over the fact that you denied his love,
All because you had eyes elsewhere.

just know,
        light footed boy
                     faint hearted girl,
glory morning dew
teared umbrella

bristling in the
fierce passion erupting like piano keys
          ignited by the spark
          of shared candles

dotting the palaces
         our maddening pursuit
                     love
                                      
                                           the soreness bristling
                                                on the bottom of my feet  
         my coarse voice
         and tired windpipes

                                                                                     my love for you ceased,
                                                                                        teared by the ricochet
                                                                                    of my failed daydreams

“Tap,” beckoned the door,
A, “knock,”
And signature I’d never forget –
Cross the “t’s, “dot the “i’s,”
An empty night’s forged check
And liquor paved path to be,
To bed, it’s her, it’s her.

It’s also 3:10 AM,
Better than PM,
Where I’m still awake,
Still at work,
And as always,
Annoyed by the nuisance of
Another.

I don’t say “hi,”
And far from reluctantly,
She grabs a beer,
The only cold one I’ve got,
Frail fingered, cry-stain eyed,
And fresh off the ultimate high,
Love, and again.

She hovers to my room,
A natural,
Where she walks with closed lids
Guided by music that’s
Remnant and
Leaking phantoms
From speakers spiting souls –

And it’s
The song she always played,
And it’s, “ours,”
Once a favorite of mine,
And it’s now if only a melody,
Destroyed by repetition and her
Obsession with “echoes.”

I endure.

As the day breaks and the shards embed in your soles,
Tread lightly.
Don't be the one to take away the glare;
A blanket that draws you -
Hand over brow for an empty salute -
To the vast empty spaces where
You hold the only shade.

If you're who I want to be,
You'll give it back as you found it.
Calmly picking up the splinters
And trying to make it right;
Right so the slow tick lines up with the
Imperceptible order of things and no one feels uneasy;

So no one shivers as you cast it back to the horizon,
Waiting once again for the ricochet.

Crackles in the sky,
Ricocheting,
Electrifying.
Allegretto in its
Timing.
Indigo bled out,
New colors flash
Glowering.

A shriek in the house.

Stillness assumes
Till another spark
Opens the fear,
Rearing this chilling, rumbling
Music.