the rest of this story,
I can only give away
the segments that remain.
Some were scribbled over
too many times with bleeding ink,
some may have been burned
without me one autumn evening.
I know that some of them flew off
into the night as I drove away,
away to my small apartment
while you stayed in the same house,
hidden among the valley and pines.
You're the reason why I feel
everything more in the winter,
I'd keep us wrapped together
for all time if I could.
It's been hours since we lay
like spoons facing each other,
cocooned in beautiful mutual heat,
but even as the car tore along Mulholland,
icy air whipping against cloth and steel,
I can trace your scent all over me.
If we were more animalistic,
this would've made me marked territory,
even though no pheromone lingering
upon this skin can claim me
any more than you already have.
It will fade, this unique aroma,
your perfumes and skin mingled
but will evaporate regardless
of how I wish to cling.
It's the first time an ache for you
became something too dark and painful
to bridge with my words near yours,
it's the first time I truly kept a secret from you.
I only foresaw damage in the telling,
no matter how I handed
over my entire heart.
I'm still afraid to tell you things...
Like how I would bend
languages to see your name
anagrammed in every word,
or how my whole body stilled
just from a fingertip along my cheek,
form forever tuned to a specific touch.
Someone asked me to tell
the rest of this story,
I would give it all away if I could,
never revisit that sinuous cold road
that separates the city's glittering night
from the dark sprawl of lonely homes
where you reside in a foreign life.
Segments have been glimpsed
anytime we inevitably meet up,
a wine you never cared for
but keep aged and chilled,
a glass with another name on it
that I sipped from slowly.
Pages I gave you are now
locked away in a box,
engraved in a place where history
never seemed to change,
never needed a new identity.
Some were scribbled in moments
to capture the immediacy
of having you all to myself,
some may have been burned
without me one late autumn evening.
I know you still read some of them,
held against your cheek
as if you've become carbon
and could absorb me into you.
You'll pour over them after
I drive off into the night,
back to where I sleep alone
as you make plans in your home,
hidden among the valley and pines.
You're the reason why I feel
everything more in the winter,
I'd keep us wrapped together
for all time if I could.
It's been hours since we lay
in familiar cocooned heat,
but even as the car speeds
far away from Mulholland,
November air whipping through me,
I can still trace exactly
where you left me singed.
If I could tell you everything,
then you would finally know
that no one else lingers
or claims me the way you can.
It will fade, though, this potency,
the shuddering release we shared
can only be clung to in memory
regardless of how you said my name
Or how you held my face
so close to yours and whispered
that you should come with me,
it was the first time an ache for you
became something too lonely
for either of us to acknowledge.
