Lost in the Park, a poem

She knows this place. How the trees sway

with the wind, so intimately. It whispers

silently with her heart, beating to a rhythm

that sings with the birds. She knows this is it.

Where love is made, where it hides, hanging

from branches too far to reach.

The sweet smell of oak collides

with the breath of the ocean,

peace.

And he is there. To fill the emptiness.

She cannot explain how he fills the void within wind,

between breaths, between fingers.

The silence in the air is beautiful and incomplete.

The sun shines reflecting her skin to the sky, gold-ish brown

contrasting his rich, dark skin.

Smile radiant, and God-like, and purer

than how her smile masks itself in hard times. T

he wind pushes hair back, eyelids closed, hands open

to catch the grass. Green with purity

and dripping the cloud’s tears.

She counts how slowly time ticks in this place,

and his heart ticks along with it, catching

the beat of joy. So perfect.

And she looks on into the water, losing herself in the tide,

seeing words form, poems swim,

she drowns in the peace. Not hearing

the joggers running with no sense of direction,

timeless ticking of legs against pavement.

Not seeing children running for freedom, catching

innocence in dandelions, and smelling

rain fall from the leaves. She knows this place.

The water kisses the sky, eternal embrace.

The paradise he wanted to escape to and leave her there,

with memories, with sounds, with thoughts, with laughter of him.

Of them. She knew she would lose him in those waters,

so she buried a part of herself beneath a broken rose along the shore,

where he no longer visits.

She is afraid to go back herself.

To smell the rain, hear the wind, feel the sun, and knowing

there is loneliness in the place she once knew.

An emptiness as she walks in a place that was never hers,

never theirs. To find a rose blackened

by her tears, she drowns

trying to find him in the water.