Hold that--

Hold that oz. of fear screaming from the glassy veil of salty tears

Welding in the cusp of your eye lid

 Woefully fold up that torment and stuff it in your hearts front pocket

Place that stampede of fluttering butterflies in the pit of your stomach

And hold them there

Like a memory, displayed on living room coffee tables like anthologies

I mean to never forget

Tile you bathroom floor with a mosaic of your broken promises, cold beneath your toes

And burden the mailman with your sorries that they might be returned to sender--

One a day except on the Sabbath 

Don’t ever fix that squeaking hinge on the front door

Always recall what it sounded like closing behind my bidding footsteps

Record my exit and etch it on inner eyelids

Cuz I’m coming back

Never believed in second chances, but our love advanced to a place I’d never conceived at its peak

And traversed the confounding valleys of pity shifting me of balance

Too weak to stand for it so I departed

I know now love aint for the faint hearted and is surely a verb so now I vow to work at it

But one thing is for sure

Third chances are for the foolish who disregard the dead end tattooed on the frontal lobe of a fleeting romance

You’ve Gotta know when you’ve come to the end of the road

But I decided to give it another go

Though the slates been wiped clean you are not back at square one

Use the building blocks of this battered relationship crumbling at each corner to fortress our connection

Be sure to point your canon in another direction this time

The camp can’t withstand another attack

And stay intact

And be clear I refuse to go back to dinner tables set for two but sitting one

A centerpiece vase with flowers wilting like our conversations of withering substance

No longer will I fumble awkwardly to answer the dreaded inquiries of where you are when it is here you need to be

Baby, remember the shattered-ness of the time I left

So this time you won’t forget to stamp a red fragile on this relationship

And handle with care

Bubble-wrap what we hold sacred will attentiveness

I’ve never believed that love was free

But I’m no golden digger and never have I asked for money

I just need your undivided sometimes

Wanna be prioritized over your grind

Cuz with whom will your share the view from the pinnacle if not the one who loved you when you were low

 Remember how the once chirping birds sounded like drowning crows the first morning you rolled over and the other side of the bed was cold

And maybe this time you will appreciate the coddle and cuddle in a dusky Autumn

Cotton pillow….the standing locum

Replay the melodious quietude from the highest quality beats

Do our argument sound just a tad more sweet?

Hold that oz. of fear, the hurt, the pain

That you’ll never push me to leave again…

©Brion Gill