He.

He.

The heat of a vintage lamp watched idly by as he weaved his life into piano keys. Just as his adolescence made mistakes, he hit the wrong keys, playing when he shouldn’t, talking out of tune. Fueled by the feeling received from the melody he continued creating errors, not a traditional, wise path but one that tickled his brain in stimulation. The chemical-infused notes signify the ever-changing ambiance in the fever that was our prematurity in juvenile adoration. I imagine coming behind him, brushing his shoulders with the softest fingertips I could muster as he plays. Enraptured by the notes, I don’t hear his missteps. I had never heard the song before, at least never like this.

He’s nestled into the corner of the dilapidated, barn red truck, head in the rafters, due to his tall build. Finding reverence in the truck that once belonged to me, smelling stale, from years where it sat barren. The arms folded at his sides create dormant wings, I once felt around my face in cradling love. He uses large words incorrectly, voice screeching as they are shared yet not comprehended. I don’t dare correct him. He masks his mistakes in unwavering ignorance, I only just started noticing. How could someone so effervescent yet timid speak so out of turn? On his terms, convoluted statements make points based on aggravation. I sulk at his abundance of misguided knowledge, ill-witted permission to speak creates flames, awakening a blaze inside me. He has seen me course and pop, seen the crackles of my determination to dominate in bitter remarks spread and consume, I’ve seen it too. Although this time is different, I give up on winning and simply try to see where the point lies, but the point has faded. Nestled into the snow, like the ground outside, frozen over by time. I pull back into the leather seat and try to remember the sweet times of us, us back then.

Failing, I rise from the mirage of our once kindled relationship. His words sting and burn as he comments on my lack of attention toward our one-sided argument. My stomach sinks, my face unmoving, as I stare towards the fogged window due to the heat created between breaths. My cold demeanor reflects the winter outside as the car window reflects my image, unmatching my interior. I’m melting on the inside, dreading what life might be like without him. Though my wooden walls hold strong, my expressions unfaltering. Just like the truck, which now smells of him, I am parked, warm inside holding internal conflict, with an exterior cold to the touch.

The tears bubble and spray yet flow in a manner of formal manners, still holding onto some semblance of formality in front of me, fueled by embarrassment. The tears spew, mumbling soft bitter practices, flailing on soft mounds of flesh below his pooling, hopeless eyes, so I may look upon him in relinquished love as he looks upon me in fear. A fear that dried the rivulets to become sticky with now rational premonitions of our crumbling bond. His eyes are dampened, lashes becoming glossy with a familiar wet. Full lips spit questions of how he could ever find perch in a stable so cold and empty, describing me. Full lips which swell in sadness, a comforting pink hue that one could coddle like an infant yet attack like an animal, teeth-gnashing, pulling that of which into my own course plushness. I wish he could hear my internal adoration, although I don’t speak it. The gentle innocence of his lips creates a juxtaposition from the harsh features of a scarred face with a tan copper base, even in the winter, giving evidence toward stern defiance of leisure, persuaded into a still life of grit and earth. He’s burrowed a home in the warmth of a truck that used to belong to only me, giving my barren barn purpose.

As our relationship is finalized, burdened, and broken in the span of a car ride. I see our first bashful kisses in the seat behind mine, which plucked our red cheeks, as fragile words were reiterated softly and fell off his lips even softer. Words of love and forever intermixed in the feverish first we’d always remember. Heating the shelter, warming my insides. I pulled back half expecting for him to have dissolved into the fabric of the car’s seat, due to our heat, yet he looks back at me enraptured, neck-craning, beak still puckered, and eyes now dark. Like a barn owl.