Soapbox

It seemed so easy at first.
Like two young birds just out of the nest, teetering on a branch
we suddenly tumbled forward
and discovered what our wings were for.
We were not a perfect couple, but we were a perfect couplet:
our hearts just seemed to rhyme,
as our wings beat in the same rhythms of desire and delight
and the ride was intoxicating.

It felt easy, so effortless,
probably because we had no concept then of how hard anything could be,
or  the true heaviness of thunder.
We just dove head-first into the wind
plunged into the welcoming air together,
flying a wings breadth above the trees
but oh, we thought we soared so high.
We heard the song of the warm nights echoed in our own singing blood.
we knew it felt right, assumed it would always would
believed that the air would always hold us up
and never considered the kind of storms,
bruise- purple, roiling on the horizon
that can turn any song to a scream.

Though in truth, it took no terrible storm,
just the day-after-day turbulence created when the cool reality
of different friends, disconnecting schedules and unrelated dreams
slides beneath the warm, soft air of fantasy.
The rhythm of our wing-strokes began to syncopate,
then contradict
and really, we were just flapping aimlessly by the time consequences
and the rush of air from careless words
sent us tumbling in different directions
finding ourselves, at last, lonely and confused,
on opposite sides of the great divide.

Now we know that nothing, really, is easy,
but we were young then, untried, directionless.
And perhaps the thrill of flight was all we really shared,
and we never could have made it over the mountains together.
But sometimes I can sense it
trembling on the edge of vision:
that future we thought we’d be living.
It lingers, wanders fretfully through my dreams
the ghost of a displaced reality
that doesn’t understand that it is dead,
that it was finished before it could ever begin.

The skies are clear around me as I circle toward my own horizon
and I rarely pause now to wonder where your wings have taken you,
but occasionally, if I close my eyes
I can still hear the rush of air across your feathers.