Versions

Your final touch was like a stone,
cold screaming throughout me
from the contact of one fingertip,
it’s why I only knew how to pull
away from every embrace after.

The wind howls as headlights
vanish down the driveway,
down the road that you’ll never
be able to navigate again
without remembering what I said.

In another secret draft,
the wind tears outside,
still wrapped in my arms,
you refuse to go and say
that you’re finally home,
that the violent jealousy
gripping us no longer matters.

Then I’d be able to show you
that I can reach you like no one else,
I wouldn’t make mistakes
while clamoring for affection,
I’d be patient enough to reset
this calendar once and for all.

I’d keep every promise
that we never could when
I was a much better man
in another version of the story.

This was the night I lost you,
when a refused gift became
nothing but a shot in the dark,
something you won’t think about
even though it meant everything to me.

Your final touch said goodbye
without a word passing through
your beautiful and soft lips,
I’d go on to compare them
to every other kiss later on.

How they took us beyond to
warm currents I can no longer
travel to alone without hearing
the song that played as you drove off.

How our bodies climbed down
after that burning mutual rush,
arms and legs draped together
as if they could never be untied,
it was the only time I felt safe.

In another version of the story,
I’d be able to tell you that
I still see the perfect still
curve of your silhouette.

Or how in the hush after love made,
if I listened close enough for once,
I would’ve heard you saying everything
that I tried to pressure you
to find a damn voice for
before it was far too late.

Your final touch wouldn’t have been
a stone raining from the above,
from the cold November sky,
but I only looked at the way
long tangled locks shielded your face,
curtained around the curves and ridges
my fingertips traced in the dark for hours,
as if I knew I had to memorize each one,
as if I knew how your absence would mark me.

In the version that I keep close,
the one I can’t write to capture,
what happened lies somewhere in between,
what we didn’t say or give in the end….

The name you can’t cry out now,
the lifeline you can always recall
when November’s cold sweeps in,
the weighted secret of the way
my blood always craves you.

The way you gently kissed the corners
of my mouth before escalating
and leaving them raw with exploration,
whispering afterwards that
I was all yours when
I was a much better man.

But this was the night
that I finally lost you.