Tightrope

We are caught in between acts, we the tightrope walkers, trembling on the fine line between night and day, unable to finish, the world ceasing to care.

Somewhere along the line, the spotlight had slipped off unnoticed, had faded into the fog as all Berkeley solstices do.

I was so sure fall had arrived.

It was unmistakable.

My hands were raw from the burn of the chilled coastal mist and from pounding out a carnal cadence on your door at some godforsaken hour...

But you rose and touched me as if it was still Spring.

Your half-moon eyes pulled me into bed with you. Your fists bloomed into long petals.

We awake in your curtained room, unsure whether it is dawn or dusk.

We are stranded, each to an island of blankets and I am searching your eyes for a beacon.

Seeing none, I pour out the libations in solemn silence to appease The Fates, to empty the bottles I need to fashion vessels of hope, of desperation, a thousand ship salute across a sea swollen with pride.

Oh but would they burn like floating funeral pyres, the fleet of memories aimed at your heart and expelled out of my own, the flames only requited by water...

What doesn't touch you can't hurt you.

Or can it?

You chose a knife to your wrist as if you were carving your half out of my life, the patterns of missing flesh like hieroglyphs etched permanently in my heart.

So what can I do, but drink it all down, fill flesh with flesh, lengthen the rope and keep walking...

As if my life depended on it.