Running on full

I looked over at him and I knew that I loved him like cornbread buttered. I loved the way his hand trickled along the almost of my back. I could love him longer anonymously. That part hurts less. I could love him longer from the part of me that doesn’t cause for reality to come to life at all. I could love him in the morning raw naked running to the refrigerator in a giggle-fit trying to grab the orange juice before he notices I’m gone. I could love him from the tips of my soul when I’d already laughed him off. I know better. I’ve been here, honest.

I could hold his hand and fly into a symphony. I could write him into an epiphany, then back again. I made this choice one morning. The world would be upset if they knew. The pattern was antique bedding. He would kiss me softly once, softly twice, I would fall into melting. I would breathe. He and I would make a dream. I’d take him to Paris. But I’d wish he would take me. I would not look at these walls ever again. I would leave.

Caution was cute, but ah the pattern of absence. Flash to now. I don't feel anything when he issn’t around. Flash again. I don’t feel alive at all. I don’t even feel the whitespace around me. I don’t feel his flashlight on me. I don’t have patchwork eyelids. I usually have patchwork eyelids. My love, I am pacing down main street watching lamps grow from telephone lines. I am not any good undercover. I have no eyes for the butterflies inside. I can ignore them but they're still in my pocket book.

He pairs up the socks like patron on the rocks. He would wipe off the couch and pretend he’d do that forever. I’d compare that with the slosh or lapse that went to bed before I could calm, woke me up midnight to watch the ceiling meet the walls, and my how I need to dust it all. The headache and the alarm are both in charge now. My heartbeat became so electric it died. Once I wasn’t, I became it. I drew something else. I dreamt of neither. I painted my career on the hill-top. My future flickered.

He wasn’t either of you. He wasn’t any bit. He was plastic. I loved elastic. Jumping we did. Until our heart’s weren’t content and kidding. I left my conscience out of this so that karma couldn’t get me. I watched my bedtime sleep. I leapt. I wanted to see him have everything he promised. But I knew I was just running on full.