you would have loved me.

                  ​ivory ink skinned,
      delicate lavender and chamomile
         braided helix into her stygian hair,
  desert roses at the aethereal curves of her shoulders.

there's something so soft about summer mornings.

and like magic, i can write again.
i'm twisting my hands around a staff of acacia,
trailing in the path of nomads and vague directions
intended to an oasis, surrounded
with blooming cacti and the prettiest mirages.

i'll say i was lost on purpose.

scarlet scarf around your head, playing the cithara
that you stole from a soldier,
your boots kicked the sand up and i laughed.

found you, little red, and you found me.

did you know the dunes breathe with oak lungs? that the
    stars at nightfall seem to shoot towards earth?
              that timber wolves are not
 what they appear?

            you laid back beside me as the sky darkened
    and set out a woven basket of reeds
filled with orange blossoms, leaves from a date palm,
                  thin stems of hummingbird mint.

we draw over the constellations, we draw new ones,
and we spin stories for each other in these
starlight picnics, because in the dawn
i'm expected to be losing myself in the woods.

        the stories have it wrong, i whispered.
in the right version, you might have stayed with me.
            you could have trusted me.