Cloud Sheets

I would die for you.

But I must leave
There is a painful difference
Between the stitches of our heart
And the everyday threads we weave

How can it feel this warm?
From this moment. I saw myself
Looking back at your smile that
Morning as I gazed, eyes heavy and
Soul still. I saw the thousand
Reflections of my future self
Lamenting the beauty

I knew the journey that smile
Promised me. Somehow I could
Feel the pain, the despair,
The regret, the lessons,
the forgetting. Fuck the forgetting!
I think each of your molars knew it
Too, and they stood behind the scenes
Whispering through your innocent
Eyes tails of the grey, stormy skies
My being would face as it
Retraced your face under the cloud sheets

A waste! The whole thing! For what
Did we grow our love if only to end
It with the most graceful period
Lips have ever revealed. We grew it
So it would grow, I suppose. The sentence
Of us is the only run-on Mrs. Mackenzie would
Ever say was necessary to the
Whole. Every last word. And that smile
Was the end. And it was beautiful
Because it wasn’t pretend

It was the bridge between how
Blessed my life had been and
How blessed it would
Become. It was your let-me-go and
Your don’t-you-ever-let-anything-come-between-us
It was you knowing what
I knew and fearing what I
Feared

Knowing, feeling for years
The unadulterated beauty upon
Which we forged each other’s hearts.

Fearing that the endless
Nights which we embraced were preparing
Us for another from the start.