Crash and Burn

It begins with a glance

A shy smile, a blush

A glance away

Rewind. Stop. Play.

Repeat until you are left swooning

It is you I saw first

Before all else.

Numbers scrawled in blue ink over your palm

A jumble of numbers that will determine your fate

You pick up the phone

Pause and debate

Dial

The phone rings

You let it ring three times

Ring, Ring, Ring

Practice what you’re going to say

“Hello?”

You hang up.

“Goodbye.”

You mutter softly to the kitchen tile.

You dream of your unrequited

Eyes that pierce your soul

Like an arrow to your heart they sit alone

With windblown hair, they ponder over a pencil and notepad

You wonder what they might be thinking

Waiting for a companion to strike a conversation

Cupid has struck again

But it’s not Valentine’s Day, stupid!

Footsteps melt into sand

As hands interlock in a lover’s embrace

The scent of the ocean seizes the lungs

As sun-stained eyes decorate the skin

With knitted initials

You are mine.

Cotton sheets are warm

Tangling like a cocoon

As two bodies become one

Mixing with the sound of hushed moans

And of urgent lips

The tang of sweat and lingering soap

I love you.

You wake—

And it ends with a glance

As your unrequited walks hand in hand

With somebody else

Smelling of their body, engraved with their initials

And not yours.

They leave you amidst the debris of your castle in the sky

To crash and burn, bathing in the ashes of first love.