Summer Romance

I could never stare long enough,
But I needed to keep looking at you to understand why I could.

I would dream at night of us running together. Our feet aligned,
Leaving the ground, striking at the same time. Syncopation.

Proust had shuttered windows, Marguerite Duras a muted house,
emptiness promises to penetrate virgin territory. I am empty.

My life has never been comfortable in homes,
The anonymity of hotels is of more comfort.

You were the grandest of hotels, so many closed doors to wonder about.
The distance you exuded, a peephole presence that keeps bringing me to my hotel door.

Patty Smith posed the question of ‘why do we write?” Answering herself,
“a chorus erupts. Because we cannot live.”

You had vacuumed up the oxygen around me, every living lung tissue,
you clogged my heart and every minute feels like I will die if you don’t knock.

A lock and suddenly after years, the realization I was fiddling with the wrong combination.
Your visibility just unsnapped the lock and everything I dreamed of you in sleep opened to become a needed reality.

Burn the bridge down. Every part of you prompted that feeling in me.
Still. Your simple touches panicked me, the virgin startle of being touched for the first time by something you desire.

Such a stiff reaction from a body that was as limp as gelatin in thought.
You were certainly the word ‘maybe’ people use when they mean “yes.”