Lazy autumn nights sipping high proof diet coke,
subtly inhaled earthly vanilla scents
smelled from the depth of her arching neck,
black eyes that showed her world in tears,
a porcelain smiling face lying in shards at her feet
while guitars scream in pain on a flickering TV screen,
and unable to touch because we're too far near,
unable to waken because we're too far gone

Her silent silhouette against the frigid stars
and a distant look on her face
as she looks at memories too close in time to love,
she feels the scars that bled her pain away
and she misses the abscence of her longing,
of August nights when she wore him like a cloak
and he her, as they warmed each other's hearts
and bred fire in each other's bodies

Sweaty palms and confusion over serviettes,
playing footsy 'neath the dinner table
and childlike wonder at the sound of crystal glasses,
somehow I think we died in each other's eyes those nights
and were reborn in each other's arms
when we stained each other's shirts with tears,
but when we're in the here and now together
I wonder what we'll ever choose to remember

Too far lost in knowing looks to realize
that our pants smoldered from the nearness of the fire,
jealous darting looks disguised by the night
and the realization that we'll never own each other,
but we'd somehow always known it would happen
even if we couldn't admit that it already had,
but it all made sense by the light of the moon
when I listened to the voices of her eyes

The salt of her lips and her fragile heart in my hand,
I know we'll never forget to search
for the star in heaven that hovers where we are,
and all that she intends to hide away,
all she keeps inside isn't printed on the bottle,
but i tasted it when i drank of her narcotizing spirits,
and she tells me i'm too far close to her heart
but that we're too far away to hold

And her body shimmers in my dreams
as her heart beats a thousand years away
and mine in time shivers not too near at hand,
and will we ever be again, will we ever be
like children dancing in oceans of butterflies
and troubled most by the monsters under our beds
and the threat of brussel sprouts at dinner,
i ask: will we ever be able to regain our innocence again?

Andrew Miller
© 1999