Ah. Yes. It was right around Christmas.

I could feel it in the exact moment that it started, if I’m honest. The gap in text responses were broader, the invitations grew lighter. And while it was easier to deal with the aftermath this time, as I was now the product of truly well and seasoned brokenhearted circumstances (courtesy of you), it still struck a death blow to my heart.

One so heavy-handed that I swore that I could feel the pain radiate from its center, then stretch out lazily through my vascular system, spreading the heartsickness through each morsel of my body with sadistic glee.

There was no event, no fight, no disagreement. Not at all. You simply just slipped away from my life. And the beauty of it was that it was somehow both all at once and never-ending. If I wasn’t the one dealing with the damage, I’d be thoroughly impressed at the artistry of it. The leaving was pure art. Half Irish goodbye, half ghost.

Alas, my love. My true love. I’ll be right here, standing still in this same spot, without expectation but filled to the brim with hope that you’ll return. So that I can return the favor back to you and break your heart good and terrible. It’s going to be a delightfully grotesque bloodbath.

I can’t hardly wait… hurry, please.

/l

On cream linens she lays all night

The end of summer heat heavy

A moment ripened for fever dreams

Windows open and tucked tight

With the moon hung above

Keeping guard for her sun king

The clocks churn well past midnight

Oh sweet reunion, she longs for

Fingertips to flesh to mouth to lotus

She feels him, though ever so slight

Pressing into gentle petals until

She cascades and falls far apart

Whispering his name with delight

She’s poet goddess chic,

My behind-closed-doors freak

I’m so into you, can’t you tell?

Be my friend, my lover, ma belle

Let me make you my gal, my baby

I know you want it too, no maybe

She’s that high level artiste,

My five foot three little feast

Swinging hips, oh how she pose

As I strum my Tennessee Rose

I see it in her eyes, she’s my world

My queen in diamonds and pearls

She squinted through her glasses at his quiet, studied form, taking tiny but significant steps across the garden. It didn’t take long to get to him. A polite cough chirped out to catch his attention but he didn’t look up and over at her.

Despite the cloud of smoke over his bent head, like a grey halo, she sat a few feet away. Ten seconds later, she shimmied the skirt of her long dress with her across the length of the oak bench, even closer.

He breathed a deeply impatient sigh, and eventually looked her way.

“Hi again”, she whispered.

High above the banks of the mighty grey river, cars weave and speed and twist through the course with all the fury of a tidal wave approaching. Even higher above on a hill, sits a little blue house with two big windows, standing witness like God’s own set of eyes.

Below, they charge themselves forward, freewheeling and high full of arrogance, as it so typically goes. Despite the cautionary signs marked at every quarter mile, warning of the dangers, it’s more of the same on a rainy December morning. And amid the outcries of disbelief and anguish, the little blue house stands by silently, as if saying, “I told you so.”

The crash is a fatal one. Into the cold, dark river it goes, they go. Mangled pieces of steel and blood, all wrapped together, sinking below the fast-moving current. A crying shame, really. Another unavoidable wreckage finding its final resting place at the bottom of the mighty grey river while the little blue house stands guard, watching it unfold.