you look too long

one of the finer things about being a woman

is that she can always always

sense a lingering set of eyes,

remaining a moment too long

where perhaps they should not be.

i do not love you still

but your silky blues so honorably betray you.

it's the same awkward conversation.

you compliment my snake bracelet and i

say thank you and look away

and ask how your father is.

it's like that apocalyptic minute in your car

when we gambled our feelings at once

and the dice all landed on yes, let's be lovers.

it's like us and our movie-scene first kiss

on the front steps where anyone could see.

it's like i'm 21 again.

but you haven't let me go,

not really.

even after i asked you to.

i toss back Chardonnays like water, you know me,

and when there's music again

i'm on the floor

because it's a wedding and

because all of my friends' hearts are full as ever

and that means we should be

dancing like we did in college.

i do and we are drinking each other's smiles, all of us,

and you are there too at last

and i catch you looking

and you look too long.

you look at me,

glowing from my pores,

and i am in an instant, in some words

the one who got away.

you aren't supposed to wonder when you stare; your

girlfriend should be where your

eyes end up. but i am

the gravity tethering you to uneven ground

i'm no longer standing on.

i am no fire worth ogling,

no explosion in the sky. i am only

the girl you thought you knew,

the one who erupted into your heart,

a whimsical twirl in sync with your beat:

melancholy but all at once

wrong for me, wrong like

how you look too long at me

still.

07.2012