i kissed you once out
here beside these trees, and
in soft regret your eyes were
turned inward, towards that part
of your life invisible to all but,
or even and, yourself

but the memory is not the
kiss, it is the look and the
feel of your face as i touched
it, brushing the hair back
off your forehead, appraising both
the moment and the look in
your eyes

but what is frozen often
melts, if enough time passes, and
only now do i recognize something
like fear mixed with your
longing – for while you felt something
for me, i was a strange, unpredictable
creature in your eyes, full of
words and tales

and the stories you knew
best always ended up being
scary ones: perhaps this was
a false setup to a frightening
ending – you weren’t sure

but i mistook that look for
a bad grade, and

dropped the class