Sitting on the bridge alone, watching the waters flow. The swooping birds delicately dive for a swimming morsel. Like poetry in motion, the mechanics of wings catching thermals and predatory instincts.

It has been cold lately and the water looks so serene beneath me. A cool wind stirs the treetops into a happy dance. The world is a place of intense beauty and I find myself immersed in it.

Yet seperate.

The sunlight flickers through the heavy clouds above. Every now and then a stray beam catches me and the tendrils of warmth embrace me or the briefest of moments. It reminds me if when she would draped her hand over mine as I drove down the highway. Just that subtle moment of contact that erases the bad.

But memories are like the river below me. Ever changing things, never quite the same as it was mere seconds before.

Her voice melodious like the babbling of the liquid. Soft, hard to hear unless I put my good ear towards her lips. She liked to speak extra low to make it hard for me to understand. It was a game to her. She knew her every words was my only desire so she made me fight for them.

She liked it when I fought for her. Enjoyed putting me in precariously predicaments to see how I would react to them. To tease me. She said she could see the beast behind my smiling eyes. I always thought she loved the beast more than she loved me.

I asked her once if it was true and she gave me a smoldering look and kissed me hard enough to iliicit a low moan from my throat. We undressed each other with a frantic need and I took her there on the blanket in the quiet corner of the park. I remember a stick under the soft plaid blanket driving into my knee. It hurt but the need was burning beyond simple things like pain.

I had a bruise that hurt for two weeks after that. Every twinge of pain when I stood or walked an anthem to pleasure.

I loved her and she loved the way I would make her cum over and over again. It was always a bit one sided. Not the orgasms, she gave as good as she received. Her warm mouth, her soft hands, her tight wet pussy. She tasted as good as she felt. I could spend hours tracing my fingers, my tongue, across her supple pale skin. I knew her curves better than I knew the back of my hands. Played her body like a master musician plays his favorite guitar. Every secret spot was my home.

I thought we would make love to each other until the world burned down around us. Ignited by the fiery passion we embodied.

But that is the problem with a raging inferno, it consumed all the fuel from the air around it and smothers itself out.

That is what happened to us. We were better naked, writhing under the sheets than as a couple in love. When my tongue was inside of her it made magic real. When it was not it cut like a blade. No matter how many flowery phrases I spoke in the end it was the lashing knife work that cut us apart.

I was not the only one to blame.

She had a temper like a volcano. The burning stayed deep within until the pressure mounted and by the time she erupted in anger it was complete destruction. And she had been simmering for quite a while. I just didn’t have the sense of a wild animal to feel the vibrations beneath my feet and turn tail and run.

Our love was a temporary thing I clung to as it dissolved. Like a mammoth chased into the tar pits I was drowning in the sludge before I knew I was stuck. She was fleet of foot and had already gotten to high ground to sit and watch me flail.

In the end I wanted more and she wanted out. And all I could do was watch her leave.

I was the fish and she was the bird diving into the icy waters. She consumed me whole and left my bones to bleach in the absent sun.

After she left like a thief in the night I couldn’t go or do anything without seeing her. Her scent flavored everything. She came to me in my dreams. Haunted my every turn.

Just a burned out husk she left in the place where I once lived. I was just another robot running through the preprogrammed routines left to rust out in the elements. The dream turned into a nightmare, the nightmare into a shattered mirror image of life.

This bridge is the only place I can find peace of mind. But even here she slips in, her smile radiating like the shy sun above.

I don’t remember standing up and walking to the railing. Watching the swollen waters churn. The raptor plummet and reemerge with a wriggling treat. How long did I stand there staring? Knowing I had already made the decision? When did I take my phone out of pocket and remove my necklace and set them gently on the ground?

But there I stood, the railing adding another four feet of height. Watching the waves. The quick current of the surface belies the true speed just under the frothy white.

And then I was falling, like a hawk seeking a rabbit in it’s talons. The sweet embrace of the water rushing up.