we slide off,
each in diverging directions
with a slant backwards glance—

and I am caught up in your
eyes, caught up
in the openness of your laugh,
inviting me to stay
just ten minutes
longer in your bed.
inviting my lips to speak
what yours already know:
there is no time
for us, but
let me drown in you
anyway.

—you turn the corner,
that golden beast sinks.

And I won’t see you.

I took a deep breath
and looked at the leaves falling
it's like watching you go deeper into this
And I just let you be

I felt motionless and bare
The end was looking at me straight in the eye
And I just couldn't even drop a tear
I knew, I was, and still am not me

Was it a dream?
The beating of my heart felt surreal
You were supposed to be only in my mind
Everything was fine until it has been too much

Perhaps we found it serene
Like no reality would ever feel as free
As if the sun rises in the west and sets in the east
How impossible it was that no one can grudge

We both winked at the truth
The comfort of deceiving ourselves
These shouldn't have gone too far
We're too complex to be living in a world of our own

Here lies the unspoken words
Of our own little universe that made things costless
And the little galaxies we tried to make
Only to know at the end, I am alone

We live in a world of irony

Mind is in circles
Yet fixed on you

Love is desired by many
Yet shared by few



© 2018
Brandi Keaton

we used the right words at the wrong time
we were kids, tired of our hometown
cranking the heater and writing poetry with our hands in the humidity on your sunroof
you'd kiss my fingers and talk about us
another us, far from here
where we had already spent mornings in bed that faded into quiet afternoons
I told you I'd miss you and we left the spaces between us as some kind of divine obliteration
I'm forgetting the taste of october
and you are learning how to brave the chill of december without the warmth of me

and it's always about the timing or the circumstances
it's always an "I'm busy" text message that fades into days of silence
it's when you notice how he used to compliment your mind
and now he only ever calls you beautiful when you're bare inbetween his sheets
and you tell yourself he's just a boy
this is what boy's do
it will get better
but "you're my girl" turns into "I don't think this is working"
and you're crying again
and you wonder why you keep having the same ending with different people

and you're wide awake in the middle of the night wishing he'd call
and then he'll miss you enough to want you but never enough to stay
and you worry you are so good at finding the wrong love you won't know how to recognize the right

Maybe we met at the wrong time
In another life I would have made you mine
I think we need some time apart
You can't be the one to hold my heart
A married man can't love another
He can't take me under the covers
He can't make me feel the way he does
I just want to go back to the way it was
But what if you're the one who gets away
I might come to regret this someday
I shouldn't want you the way that I do
In 38 days I need to be over you
You need to stop making me feel this way
Love can't be put on layaway
You know how I feel and you did it again
Why did I ever let you in

You were
the most
colorful

but your
flavour
was short
lived

"unwraps another"