All the information you've told me,

The stories, 

the mumblings you half way intend me to hear, 

the looks I feel when we connect,

              all of these pages you've let me read 

are embedded in my heart;

& to pluck these out takes study and skill,

a special examination of not the shiny memory itself 

              but the heart it is embedded in,

how I choose to hold it there 

when starker moments are not brought to light. 

My memory plays tricks, 

seducing me with the echo of what was said.

Fantasy might creep in steadily 

the longer the time fades away,

it might make you look and taste a certain way. 

I found myself looking at pictures of you 

after refusing to for such a long time,

not wanting to remember how much emphasis 

I put on your life crossing mine.

I'm afraid of a dull protective pain 

dissolving into the cracks of your smile 

or bending with the dark curve of your eyelashes. 

I'm aware of a pain that has come & gone 

& slid thick inside again & again.

I'm afraid of an artificial light drawing me in, 

pulling me into assumptions and expectations.

               But if anything, 

& no matter how trapped or caught I feel or felt, 

I can appreciate something that pulls me out of myself,

something that points out a different shade of me that not all see.