It was just yesterday,
fresh as waking, you were
dripping on my mind, leaning
on a sliver of sunlight slicing
my every thought into two;
My senses, denuded, divided
between keeping a book waiting,
and waiting some more.
You have this way
of ending our dialogues,
or suspending it,
like you often have,
with a flashing of teeth,
a splatter of rainbows,
and a throaty laugh
into my last breathless note.

If I inhaled again, and I
must have,
I knew, in some sick way,
I would have a chance
at ending a conversation,
on my own terms.
But, unmanned, then and now;
having you, and then losing
you, and waiting
too very damn long,
or insisting on control
a tad too strong,
or jumping in too fast – I never
could tell.
If I forego breathing now,
and close my eyes from seeing
rainbows again,
for a minute, or two,
I might yet realize
a greater pain.

But I’m human enough
for air, for another hope
at another exchange, down the road,
where the perhaps always lurks,
when winning and losing
don’t mean as much
as watching you
light life into me again,
simply by being.