A Taste of Sky

I love him the way
You love something you know
You're gonna have to let go...
The way you climb a tree
Just to get a little taste of sky,
Knowing that it'll only make
Being perpetually earthbound
That much more painful-
Knowing that climbing down
Is always so much more difficult
Than reaching up-

I love him like you swim hard away from shore,
Swim out so much farther than you should-
Diving through blue-green breakers like freedom,
Losing yourself in the expanse of
Enough salt water to briefly forget the fact
That you're going to have to come back in
Sooner or later, fighting back against an 
Undertow forceful enough to tug
Your heart out from under you...
And how the wind will chastise you
When you emerge, dripping seawater
Like the memory of freedom;
It burns your eyes and tastes like tears,
But your skin will have memorized
The gentle kiss, the caress, of the current,
How it pushed and pulled...
You know you'd do it again...

I love him like you watch a fire 
You've already decided to let die,
Since you realize that it would be foolish
To let the whole world burn for
The sake of a single flame...
So you just look on as the light dances,
Standing as close as you can
Until this is as much heat
At you can stand-
You have nothing more
To give to the fire, now...
All you can do is pray to God,
Please don't let the fire die...
Not yet.

Copyright © Cameron Hartley | Year Posted 2014

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