Lesson

Everyday that I saw her,
I fell more and more in love
As if stepping from the safety of a curb into traffic
Was not a dangerous thing at all.
And if she spoke or looked at me
Or in some small way
Acknowledged the possibility of my existence,
My soul would consume her in its wild-eyed fire
And my heart would break upon her
Not unlike the waves upon a shore.

She would drift like a floating feather
Captured within a summer breeze,
Freely dancing and playing and so oblivious
Of my streaming crosswind chasing her.
New days would bring us closer
While others would cast us into a different universe.
And our existence,
Never alit in the same spot,
Tortured me as though
I was gasping for the air gone thin.

But, she bore herself like a purity of thought
And a treasure more valued than the rarest earth.
And had she beckoned me to pluck the moon
From the midnight sky
So that she could sit with me
And watch the star trails fall behind it,
I would have pulled the heavens down
And soaked them in my soul
Just to glow from the beauty of our mingled spirits
When she gave them back now loved.

But our togetherness was but a distant dream that plagued her
And a frightening reality she could never fathom
That blew, yet, another wind between us.
So new days would become old days
And fleeting days now spent.
As the torturous stirring of our winds
Dissipated the truth of what we could have been,
Leaving nothing but the marks
Of freshly made tire tracks
Found upon my back.