Every day that passes behind the calendar
strikes a different chord in the long chapter of remembrance,
the winter that never became our season,
the kisses that never crossed our lips.

It is 6 am and I am sitting here
by the window and wondering about all
the steps that we walked away from when
the time came to hold onto our promise.

Dawn breaks her beautiful cover
in the company of blue light and
a stillness that brings to mind
that night in the back seat of a stranger’s car.

Go on, take a second to remember all that
we talked about as the roads slid by beneath us.
Remember the bright promise of your words that kept
me from taking the easy way out?

I tell myself that time never gave us a chance
for in the rush to get away we came together. And
when the night hurried away to hide behind the sun
you left for the comfort of familiarity.

One day, far away from now, we will
sit with a drink and smile at the stupidity
of hope. But right now the promises are too new
to ignore, too bright to shield this weak heart.

One way or the other the world will move again,
change will turn our heads away from a past that
will be left behind in forgotten photos and in
the vast wasteland of our collective memories.

But until then let me indulge that memory
where something caused your face to glow
under the faint light of the moon when you
turned to me and whispered those special words.