Kindling

Drifting apart like two sheets of ice.

Those were the days of Daughter lyrics

And tears in silence.

Filling the bed with white tissues.

Watching the snow blow outside under the street lamps.

Catching in a gust of wind while simultaneously getting caught in an up draft.

It seemed to hover there for moments caught between two conflicting directions.

Like some beautiful probation.

I watched in fascination

Hoping my phone would ding the wine glass with news of you.

Some perfect toast to a not broken thing.

I slept and dreamed the bed was full of white snow and I was digging my way to you

To find you sleeping on the other end of the tunnel.

Like nothing happened.

But I knew I saved you.

I knew I found you.

I lit fires and sat on the floor kissing my knees

watching the kindling catch with fury

in big flames that shot up the chimney

Crumbling to ash as the wood curled and deformed

A perfect lie.

A giant promise stifled for breath.

It started with a kiss on the face.

A vulnerable moment in the dark where I painted a picture of you with my hands

and turned over and repainted you over and over

Lest I never forget.

I danced my tragedy for you and you raised me kisses in your sleep and a wide eyed smile for every secret I reluctantly put in your hands.

You swallowed more and more of me with those kisses

And today you pressed your lips to my cheek and gave me back.

Endearing love becomes

Enduring love

And we don’t know why.

We play the moments in black in white like an old Ingrid Bergan love story

Hoping to find the very moment where we could have changed it.

The part of the story where the rain fogs up the window and the thunder crashes.

The pathetic fallacy

The poetic justice

I’m still picking up the shards like little mirrors into us.

The act like some great homage to loves to come.
The streets are painted with us and 

I’m still searching for you in the night and the quiet.

Listening in the crunch of the snow under my footsteps for the echo that says you’re still with me somewhere in here.

That you’re just around that corner ahead

Standing under a streetlamp in your coat with all the missing buttons

with that ear to ear smile you used to have when I opened your apartment door.

A warm chest to absorb these tears.

A fire in my belly so I can feel hungry again.

Some sign that this wasn’t all for not.

Those were the days where I said goodbye before you fully left me.

Forgave myself before I knew why.

Wished without believing.

Those were the days that winter came and took all of the things that I once had.