She lays close to me.
I could almost feel the warmed air as a cloud of smoke escapes her parted lips.
But it wasn’t the dirty kind of smoke, that leaps from the mouths of cigarette users,
but the kind of smoke that appears when warm breath catches the icy shards of a cold night.
It rises up into the stars, then falls down over me.
I breathe it in,
the air carries the cloying scent of her bubblegum,
and I smile.

I find myself caught up in the cadence of her voice,
the regular rise and fall of her gentle tone teases me.
For the songbird sings, humming the tune to the saddest lullaby I’ve ever heard,
tempting me to close my eyes.
But I don’t.

Instead, I watch her golden feathers cascading off her shoulders,
spilling into the snow.
I watch her as she slowly arches her back,
letting a soft groan trickle into the still air.
She stretches her wings to the right,
then to the left,
slowly gathering the wind beneath her,
gathering momentum.
She then tries to command it, bending and molding the wind to do what she wants.
And it listens,
it whispers her into the oblivion carrying her up
and up
until she becomes nothing but a speckle
in the already crowded sky.


From that moment on, every year
I anticipate
the moment when the last of the ageing leaves jump from their branches
that have been home to them since March.
I find myself looking forward to the sweet melody of snowfall,
for maybe she will tumble from the skies and visit me again,
maybe my songbird isn’t really gone....

I was once a lonely boy,
tiptoeing on the edge of reality,
sending all that I’ve known into complete chaos.
Now I glide on the brink of a clouded memory, stuck in a haze,
longing only to follow my girl up into the constellations.