remember when i didn’t say i love you as i stared into your eyes under the harvest moon

the stars gleaming and the wind was chilly and full of the promise of snow

and how you looked at me with wide eyes as we were the only two people on the planet for one long frozen moment

and your lips opened slightly, inviting the words choking me to come forth

and instead i leaned in and tried to say with my hungry mouth what my vocal chords couldn’t

it wasn’t enough

we both knew it

and through the passion of our kiss that flared out warming the autumn night it was the action but the unspoken parts that began the deteriorating

and i cursed myself for not saying what i should have at that moment

cursed us in my inaction

and from that day until the day you left i fumbled for a way to say the things i should have been able to you

words that tumbled out so easily as i lay alone, maybe it was because it’s easier to lie alone than to lie with someone that so desperately needs to hear the words i wasn’t sure at the time were truth or not

and you could say them so easily to me, as if breathing and speaking them were one and the same

and by the time i realized the only lie was the one i spoke to myself it was to late to let the words lay between us any longer

and as you left

without looking back

those damned things fell from listless lips and caught the first bits of frost on the brown grass of a field too late to sow

but as i replay that night

the pieces of hay in your hair from the long bumpy ride, the taste of whiskey and cigarettes on your lips

your eyes staring into mine and the words like a million fireflies dancing in those reflective orbs but i was too blind to read them

so lost in the momentary moment that the long term fell to the wayside and i acted out in an act that carried reactions i could never have foreseen nor predicted

if i could go back

fall into a quantum singularity and land exactly in that spot, with your lips hanging slightly parted

i would still kiss you as deeply as i did that night

deeper

i would kiss you so passionately and suck those words from your lungs and when at last we parted with a gasp they would fall onto your lap and you would know what i didn’t that night

but alas my wayward almost love

that’s impossible

so take solace in the fact it has haunted me ever since

that you were the one miss near miss in a series of barely missed chances that will always stain the autumn air with a bitter taste of regret

and that these lips have kissed a few misses but never missed the kiss like that one hayride on that one chilly night under that harvest moon so many moon ago