My Other Wing

Love is a beautiful pain, when your other wing flutters away.

“Because I love you I can fly”-

But my other wing is away tonight.

I have a smile like autumn when you leave

Beautiful, but falling like the leaves.

I know that no storm is coming

But saying goodbye, even just for the night leaves a thorn in my side.

A pendant of you around me.

As the metal cord wraps my neck I feel loss

If you opened my heart, all you would find is a corpse gripping what’s lost.

I wonder what splendor colorless dreams hold.

I give up and fall, soul first, into what's left of you.

Your sweater gave me a glimmer of what it's like to be a dreamer.

I wake up, bed sheets cold on one side.

Is this what it's like to sleep with no one by your side?

When you return my heart might burst

I see my other wing, remembering the warmth we shared that night.

She balances out my cold past

The medicine to my scars, she helps me heal

To touch my heart and restore my smile for real.

I remember when we left, we thought it was best

Not to risk it, because it could be gone if we took one wrong step.

Just as quick, I’ve seen someone cut their own wrist.

Love is not always a dove of peace

It is also a chain that can leave you begging for release.

I list the small things I find into the feelings of a goodbye.

From them I learned what makes us two halves of one set of wings.

The soul of flight, grounded when I am only a half,

I think of all the things I will miss, then I realize I need her

And that “it’s not ‘goodbye’; it’s ‘see you later’” is a keeper.