once certain, twice removed ...

once certain, twice removed ... i miss my youth the prairie roads carving poetry in fields of dappled gold a summer's harvest reaching heavenward to the toppling clouds of a never-ending sky where every imagined beast or beauty was caught in the reflection of the big rivers that poured like holy wine into a young boy's veins a sacrament of sorts you'd think but more and more a tattered collection of memories not quite lost but lost all the same i miss the danger of falling in love with a perfect stranger unexpectedly slipping into my life of imperfection i miss the jarred butterfly pandemonium and the nervous excitement of hands wandering across the skin of unknown bodies the silly giggles of encouragement and even the whispers of hesitant rebuke i miss the softest cheek against my cheek when lips wander to lips to share the breath of love and breathe the pulse of life from heart to heart blending the two into one i miss the slow waking from solitude into arms that wrap across my shoulders and coax my body from the cold and carry me into the warmth of knowing that dreamers live lives asleep i miss the missing the times apart the you there and the me somewhere unknown so high above the world in vacant night skies the time or distance or both that divides improbable lovers from one another the words and promises that reach across crackling telephone conversations of wounded longing i miss the purpose the obvious reason for being who i am that i see in a knowing look from bright expectant eyes or that i feel in the soft fingers that brush my hair back and away from my brow but mostly i miss every day when i might have said something hopeful and was silent Copyright © Kennedy James, 2015. All rights reserved.