You and Eye

It's the pauses when she touches him that betray

the sorrow behind every urgent 

kiss that is not so much a gesture of want

as a pleading, 

a begging full to overflowing with self-hate.

"Take me away from my ghosts.

I can't think with them dancing a riot in my head."

And he looks at her,

the saddest eyes he's ever wanted to save,

remembers all the red flags he shrugged off,

supposed he was strong enough

(and he was)

to unravel the yarn of thorns and scourges that

textured their embrace.

It was a minor salve, in a way,

because there were no smoke and mirrors and best-foot-forwards 

and the preening of courtship,

the very thought of which made them both yawn.

It was a chase and a throb and a fire,

something to render new, something to sweetly rue,

something to do and undo,

something to destroy and soothe,

something to meander, surrender to.

 

But it got bigger than them, 

in the manner that lovers always

underestimate just how combustible their entwining is.

 

Because the past never ends and the future does not come.

In fact, there is no such thing as a future,

just an aftermath.

And this, she muses, 

in the way of a vigilant calamity veteran taking quiet inventory, 

really really fucking hurts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

***Camoi Miraflor is officially my favorite young poet. (I was him and he was her... and those were my eyes.)