It's a crowded room, but all I

see is summer rain on cobblestones, and through

a rain-stained lens, something points my vision

to you.

Like the headlights of two cars

behind red lights at a midnight

intersection, our eyes meet,

a flash of recognition, fading to black--

my heart stops.

 

I am soaking from the rain

and you look like shelter, with

your eyes a blazing fireplace,

but my mother taught me well to

stay away from strangers.

Strangers.

Strangers that were not always so,

but I don't know you anymore. Do I?

 

Perhaps I know you from another life--

another story written and

yet now lies forgotten on

the shelf: the bonfire I once saw in you

has been extinguished by the elements,

until it is simply an ember

with the faint memory

of more glorious days.

 

Those were the days I spent

under your grasp. I was your little

bird--your muse--

crushed beneath your grasp,

which I called  an embrace,

not realizing that just because 

someone feels like home,

doesn't mean they are,

and that just because someone says

they love you, doesn't mean they do.

 

Yet here I am standing here

in front of you, the way I did

two years ago on the rain-slick cobblestones

in the twilight of late June, feeling my heart

twitter as the dying bird inside me

wishes to sing for you once more.

But that little songbird will soon be

gone, and I dare you to ask me

to sing for you again,

because this time you will be

met by the roar of a lioness,

who will not be made small again.

 

The headlights flash, but I am not

blinded anymore. You drive away

and I let you go, because you are nothing

but a stranger, and I'm in the fast lane to

love and joy and happiness,

and I know I can never find you there.