Crisp, crinkled leaves
When I met you
The back-to-school rush
Dazed and flustered me

But I still found time
To search for you within the aisles
Your eyes would connect to mine
And just for a second I’d forget to breathe

We whispered
Secrets and smiles
Under the thanksgiving lights
Surrounded by pastelitos and pernil

Our hands touching
Sending electricity
shocking us right out of our sockets
An outer body experience

The nights grew colder
And our bodies closer
Big breaths in as we reached
For each other’s nuances
Found only
in long kisses and caresses

We were a flame
Wild and free
Directionless
And destructive

Winter became spring
And we quickly began to see
The effects of our burn
We were ash

Desperately wanting to bloom

In the sweltering heat
I hated you
I wished you away

With sweat and tears

You were the summer that suffocates
With no relief
The mirage in the desert
Serving only to remind me
I am famished
Starving
On my last inhale

It was fall again
When the howling of
Our voices and the gnashing of our teeth
Could no longer be masked by the sweetness
of pumpkin or warm coffee

We held on for dear life
to the leafless branches

In the bitter cold we broke off each other’s frozen fingers

And then in the darkness of winter

We disappeared
Like the first snow
With no proof we were ever there…

In your absence
Spring gave birth
And made room
for my reflection
To remind me of how whole I was without
you

By summer
A new love budded
a different kind
With a sweet subtleness
of honey
Gentle like the summer rain
Washing all the sad parts of me away
I’m still in that love till this very day