You
Were the highway of my childhood –
Aspen birch skin, feline green eyes, waterfall, platinum tresses
Curves and legs
Hollywood voluptuous in a small-city girl; You were Marilyns prelude
Your joie de vivre lighting the Hollywood strip, pale, candy cane pink kisses trailing behind you
You inspired eyes of desire, and I
I chased your magic –
It followed you everywhere, although you rarely noticed
I tried to catch it in a jar, but it was trickier than those fireflies that lit the lilac bush in summertime
I tried to lure it onto my palm, but it was fierce and wild
But as the years fell away, you did, as well
Clouds of fire
Rolling through the sky
Roiling, toiling angry monstrosities
Beautiful chaos like your embattled eyes
Violin lips pressing a haunted melody against every blissful season, chilling each pleasant breeze
Blowing icy kisses that frosted the ocean waves as you stood barefoot in the cold, wet sand
Lingering somewhere that could never be touched…
Captured in a Polaroid, your hair whipping in the wind, face turned sideways, eyes numb, like your smile
And I dared never ask the question –
Since your demons easily tripped you up
And your spurs, and quills shot to attention, punching through your delicate, pale skin
Like tarnished armor that kept you separate, kept you scarce and alone
But I remember how I played in your shadow, looking up at you with adoration
Heel to your toe –
The whole world rose in your smile and danced to your laughter
And should there ever be a measure of my soul
It would be those breaths taken within the span of your ethereal wings
Moments when your love unpeeled times grey shadows to reveal exquisite pastels beneath
And, having forgotten who I was
I found myself in the glint of your soft, fragile, velvet eyes
While your lacy wings wrapped me in their lilac-scented sweetness…
We brushed against, and pushed through the clouds that ringed the mountains
Carbonated wilderness full of specters drier than a dead desert –
Coughing up their putrid sawdust, choking us
But you gathered me up and without hesitation, dove into the sky
Wings beating a lullaby
Flew past the sunflowers and marigolds
To land in the clover-dotted grass
Where we tended to our nicks and gouges
And the world righted itself, surrounded by a cornflower blue sky…
Your silhouette unfurls and I reach out from my dreams, my fingers sliding through empty air
Drops slip beneath my lashes to flow down my temples into my dark hair
I don’t want to open my eyes and admit nothingness –
But it resides there, the yin to my yang
Kitchen table coffee mornings were a best part of us
Each time I traveled back, feet on the blue concrete landing, peering through the glass panes into my childhood
Hand on the doorknob, eager
I remember the time the egg shells cracked and I hid in the bathroom, sobbing –
Unable to understand how I could make you so angry
I still don’t know what happened that day, but I hold it close to me, along with sweet, candied moments
Now that I can’t hold you
This morning, I feel separate, scarce, alone, and wish for a lullaby; I’m looking at the sky
Wishing for that fierce and wild in your long ago
As you darted and dodged, hovered and swirled
Prisms of colors, purples, greens, blues and lush black
Wings that kissed my cheeks with tenderness as you flew by –
The last dragonfly
Theater of Sorrows 