not even the rain

Damned beautiful.

I see myself in a lot of this. It's a little scary, but anyway, you're better at being me, so.
Do carry on. I don't want this to end.

We're all tired of mornings
The crack in the sidewalk is staring at
me. It rained last night; the frogs by the
pond sang of ozone and spring. I was
alone. There were numbers on paper by
my bed; I dreamt them away. The cold
seeped in through the walls. I woke,
I shivered, I reached for the blanket. It
is still here, though the hours already
have flown. I'm wearing an old shirt of
yours; it is three sizes too large, and
in the space between the cloth and my
skin I try to put all the remembered scents
and sounds of you. I'm at the window;
airplane trails across the sky fall and
reflect into the puddles on the ground,
that seep away into winter-cracked
concrete. I wish the birds had your
voice; I wish that they would sing.

Sangria
You're wearing red, and there's a wolf at the door.

You know this story. Some part of you is already moving,
feet slapping on the floor while
your eyes fly back to the
kitchen doors, the shadowed rooms that lie further away.
Your hand on the knob, and the turn of a key; a creak of
hinges, and bright, bright eyes to find yours then,
waiting patient in the dying light of the day.

The wolf's at the door.
You step aside. There are wildflowers threaded through her
hair. She's beautiful, you think, and now she's inside, and
it's just you and her.

How did it come to this? You
met her at the crossroads, and
she said Race you, bit at your lips and took off;
the leaves were rustling in your ears, the trees told you Beware,
and Tread softly. Your mouth felt foreign. Suddenly
inside your head there were stars, and the stars were her eyes.

The flowers bent their heads, and the birds sang at you,
Come here, this way.

The path was packed dirt and safety, and you looked at
it, shook your head and turned left instead; that way lay the
darkened trails, and the haughty thorns, and the silent brooks
you had tasted fleeting over her tongue.

You arrived early; still there was someone,
waiting for you there. Fragile skin and trembling hands; so
breakable, so you took care. And now--

your lips are stinging and you're wearing red,
and the wolf is smiling at you. Such beautiful eyes you
have, she says, and you're looking into hers; words
stagger past the knot in your throat, to drown in the gold
and silver. All the better to see you, you say, and lean up
to kiss her.

Postscript
You will ask one day why it is that my
words so often speak of the longing for
a touch or a kiss, of shortening the distance
between two bodies, and of the warmth found
in the convergence of fingers joining.
You will be reaching out; I will find excuses, and
run away. Here, though, is the answer you want,
that you might find it rifling back through old
files and dusty lines, on a day where I fall
back to old habits and cannot find it in me to
go outside, or even meet your eyes: it is of
you I think when I write, dear, and not of me.

See, I get the courage up to look at your thread and I come back more crushed then ever.
You're fabulous Jagz.