I am a strange stirring in the night,
the way you feel when you’ve just awoken from a dream,
the tension of your misplaced affection.

I am a lopsided smile on your pretty face,
the feeling of hands in pockets,
an embarrassment of convenience.

I am the indifference of our cautious boundaries,
the sound of silence between lovers,
the limpness of desperate hands which at nothing grasp.

I am the slow-drying tear-streaked cheeks of your expression
as you nurse your bleeding sorrow with fantasies of its resolution.

I am the feeling of you hearing me call your name in the dark,
the expectancy of my warm flesh against your pounding heart.

I am the memory of a miniature eternity within the confines
of your glassy singing orbs,
soft, brown, and shimmering in the reflection
of the silvery waves.

I am the ghost of our promise broken by fierce cruelty of societal mistrust,
a fading silhouette of spindly man limbs broken by despair
and the pain of separation inevitable wringing the necks
of those whose love is forgotten and torn beyond repair.