Carry dark chocolate.
But a heart can't be won by candies alone.
I know this. But Every day
like clockwork.
She calls my name.
She coos it like honey on silk.
I smirk knowingly
return dutifuly.
I've been working up to it
something simple
noncommital
nonchalant
"you could always talk about it.
if you think it'd help."
But I falter, I blush, and I retreat.
I say to myself- she has friends. Sisters. That rich
muscley boyfriend...
the one she's always screaming at on the phone.
About something
outside my realm on so many levels.
I know I'm playing this one a little different.
Perhaps too cautius, too long on pre-game?
Or maybe I'm waiting for him to show his heart
before I expose mine to her.
I want the divine move on this one.
That single piece that falls into position.
The perfect check.
Flawless dominos.
The sunny day, zero wind, open field shot between the eyes.
All I have to do is wait
wait
wait
wait
squeeze.
I've only visualized that moment.
Not the prize, not the victory dance, not the delicate infraction of putting her hand in mine, and my lips on hers.
At the moment, its the only moment I'm confident in.
But all the signs advised against it.
Commit the hard part to memory.
The cover. The calm. The shot. The three part extraction.
I'm in my gili suit, prone, with textured rubber leaving an abrasion against my chin.
I haven't blinked in a month.
I haven't tasted anything but soot and dry.
Because there is no sweet until I have her.
There is no life outside this scope until she is mine.
The universe is the black space around the lens.
Everything behind the barrel is just a meaty, weary lonely handicap.
I should be dancing quietly in the strange days around me
without protest
without visible displays of sorrow
without tiny handwritten notes never addressed or sent.
Without these tiny offerings to my goddess
meager bitter-sweet currency of happiness.
But I'm still in the hot sand,
with no blood in my legs,
and no air around me.
I would say "someday"
if I thought it would give me strength.