fool's gold

sad songs play and attend to the journey home.
street lamps fade out as she travels beneath them-
the dulled lights seem to echo the doubt in her mind. black.
with the windows down the night's breeze touches her face and she feels the smallest of somethings in the midst of nothingness, tangling her hair and blushing her cheeks.
numbing her fingers.
numb.

once loved then lost and duly neglected; this coldness pinches just the same.
fooled again and fell for love. relinquished dependence for the euphoria of your company.
your love so simple, so ready, so pure.
but it seems to her that love always ends this way. trends of the heart don't reduce in pain.
twice left weak and helplessly alone. so untimely. so hurried. so fleeting.

she runs from you now like she ran from you then
for fear of the possibility of a future that mirrors the past.
you are the gold so generously offered. you are the gold so regretfully declined.
yet you are the prospector plagued by unattainable bounty: the aurous girl with white gold coating, her glimmer slightly dulled.

you are the gold so selflessly offered. you are the gold so mercilessly declined.
you are the gold so persistently offered. you are the gold so repeatedly declined.
you are the gold so beautifully adorned. she is the gold so grossly damaged.
you are fool's gold. she is the fool.

Lower Back

In those days you were obsessed with her neck. 
That's all you could have - 
a few inches of her skin, the tufts of honey hair, the small freckles 
adorning porcelain. Almost breakable. 
Yours without her knowing. 


And you would watch, determined, 
every shift of her neck, every dropped glance 
down to a page and every subtle gaze. 
You consumed her as she consumed her surroundings. 


Slowly, you witnessed more. 
The rise and fall of each breath, 
the arching of her back, and 
the deep mysterious sighs you wished to understand. 
You sat behind her, absorbing this image until you, 
more confident, could sit beside her,
memorizing this new angle. 
This new side of her. 


Now you sit behind her 
and kiss the constellations of her lower back, 
connecting her adornments with your lips. 
Now you memorize the bumps of her spine 
that lift her soft skin. 
Now you marvel at the naked skin held in your hands. 
Now she is yours, the always adored 
and this lower back belonging to you is forgetful of the ones that came before 
and willfully blind to the ones that might follow.