I miss you, Chesapeake.
And the way we used to speak
Side by side in salt crusted wicker rocking-chairs.
You were never one to talk too much or listen too little.
And you were always willing to just . . . be.
I could cry in front of you, dear friend,
And not feel shamed by my bloodshot eyes.
Or I could sink to my knees in your confessional
And you would bury my secrets in the chamber of a nautilus.
I remember how I could throw out dreams in glass bottles
Cradled by pillow-top I sink
into the realm just this side of slumber.
In those last indistinguishable moments I recognize
the weight of his arm at my waist,
our hands clasped to my breast.
And the way his thigh rests between mine
I know that I am home.
I measure his breaths; by the brush
of his chest against my back;
until I know he is just as close to succumbing as I.
My unresisting mind goes under to the whisper-soft
exhalations in my ear.
And in my dreams my lover and I meet.
Crystal by crystal they fall,
Feelings in six-sided flakes.
Small, light powder floats down;
Joy, comfort, contentedness,
Settle at my feet.
As the clouds shift bringing darker horizons
Grief clings to guilt,
Anger melds to hurt,
And heavy, wet pieces build drifts against my spine.
Day to day the frozen precipitation falls,
Few know it exists. But if you would sink to your knees amongst the clutter and reach back into the depths you’d find the trove, the symbolic skeletons I’ve hung there.
The delicate white dress I wore on our first date. I fell in love for the first time in that dress. I never wore it again. No matter how many times it was washed it is forever wrinkled and limp.
The heavy brown hoodie from a midnight relationship that didn’t see dawn. That smoke-laden zip-up became a blanket on many nights, keeping the chill of loneliness at bay, offering more solace than his arms ever could.
Every day I sit at the café window
A two dimensional figure
Cloaked in black, size 10
Times New Roman.
Around me, a colorful world
In three dimensions
While page by page
The very thing that keeps me
Here,
Offers me leather bound glimpses
Of my only true friends.
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