La La Land

On her pretense,
We shared a green bottle of white wine
As we drowned our innocence in misplaced courage.
And the dull orange glow of your streetlights
Danced on your lips as you took it all in.
Now handed to me, still warm from your clutch,
It wasn't much, but it was love.

Love that I drove for you into the ground,
Just to see what he could dig up.
But time will erode as the one that I navigated,
And from what was woven

You fabricated a truth,
Pained,
Like the growth we had,
All grown too,
Familiar with.

As did the night fray,
And you pulled apart stitches;
Your wounds wouldn't heal,
So you just let them breathe.

And although these walls expand,
There are four corners to this house,
Nothing more, nothing less,
Rooted deep in soft sand,
Held together in silence,
Held as long as the time that had passed
Since we last felt like giants.

It seems to take a lifetime to stop the fall
When we tangle in our strings,
And tighten knots from moving on.
Though no promise can be buoyed
In a sea of tugging uncertainty,
We look forward

At a benevolent city,
Dwarfed by the light of angels,
Above which I made my climb.
Looking for the line that differentiated
These from those of our ghosts:
The light from your window,
Serendipitous and apropos.

Together we hold it in
As we try to hold onto each other
With small gestures that index our conflicts and plans
Of making it back to where it all began.