My love grew for you
In the quietest of moments
It bloomed with every stolen look
You took from across the room
It started off small
A butterfly here
A flutter there
Until it enveloped me
A cocoon of doom

You were birthed blood orange
Arriving out of the blue sky
Violent and lovely in color
Bursting with ***** hues
Tinting everything you touched
With a tinge of wantonness
Puckering loose lips
With tighter fists
Heating the ground under foot
Singeing palms on thighs
Igniting fires of desire
Thought to be extinguished

But as quickly as you came
You waned into a purple haze
The backdrop of a lazy sunset
And coasted along the shoreline
Until you turned midnight blue
And faded from memory

I hope my love catches up to you
In the quietest of evenings
As you lay in bed
And think of me

I hope it creeps into your bones
Until you can barely move
Settling in and spreading forth
Silently fracturing, piece by piece

I hope it seeps into your blood
That flows deep in your body
Flooding your veins with regret
Clogging your arteries with longing

I hope it lingers in the air
Gently filling your lungs
Leaving the taste of me in your mouth
The residue clinging to your teeth

I hope it grazes your skin
Raising your hair on end
The softest of shocks
The lost feeling of my touch on your fingertips

I hope it warms the place beside you
And leaves an indention that was never there
The weight of the ghost of me
Long gone...that was ages ago

I had met you once before
Years ago in high school halls
With backpacks and bustling teenagers
Acne and doubt plaguing the lot of us
A place we said we all hated
But the figurative watering hole
Of our small Texas town
I paid you little to no attention
Too self-absorbed to see you
And seemed to have lost you in the shuffle
Of weary letterman teens

I grew up
And out of that Texas town
Fell in and out of love
And struggled on my own two feet
Trying to find a home and heart that fit

I met you again
In the airport at luggage claim
With backpacks and bustling people
Fatigue and nerves plaguing the lot of us
A moment I played in my mind
Over and over again
And when I finally saw you
Bright-eyed and in love with me
I found you again in the shuffle
Of weary jet-lagged passengers

I fell in love with you
In that very moment
And as you held me against you
I found the home
I was always searching for

you burned down
like the end of a cigarette
singed my fingers
with your flame
but you died out
with every breath I took of you
and left me with only ashes
to show for it

You were afraid to let me in
Into the dark caverns of your mind
The spaces you've been ashamed of
The places you've been told to hide
I wandered precariously in
Took my time with every step
Careful not to disturb the littered ground
And ran my fingers along the rocky walls
Took long breaths of you
And sensed all pain and heartbreak
Pierce through my thin skin
Frightened, I faltered and stepped back

But once the walls were illuminated
I discovered the complex depths of you
The nooks and crannies of your heart
The things you've always held so close
Felt them as if they were my own
Pouring through my own hidden spaces
And it occurred to me in that very moment
How I've never loved you more.

You could never really look at
The color yellow the same
Because she put in it poems
And wore it against her shoulders

You found in the way she smiled
Or the noise she made when she laughed
It burst through the times she cried
Swam in her crocodile tears

It settled on her furniture in pillows
And moved through her bones in daylight
But reflected in her eyes in the nighttime
Cartwheeled on her eyelashes

She exhaled it in between sheets
And whispered it against your ear
It warmed her hands as they touched you
Engulfed her soft fingertips

You found it in her curled hair
Or the freckles on her arched back
It hung on her pink plump lips
Vibrated in her velvety kisses

It patterned the dresses she wore
And painted the tips of her toes
But tickled the nape of her neck
Danced on her tanned skin

She held it tightly in her chest
And you felt it when you held her close
It hummed against your own
Consumed her entire body

You could never really look at
The color yellow the same
Because she put it in poems
And all it ever did
Was remind you of her