Cherry Tree

Once we were, now we’re not. Far from then, we are here and don’t know when, the next time will be when things are what they were, back once when we we’re lovers-engulfed in one another, never to be separated in thought, never too distant, it would break us apart. The minds of others swam around our smirks and the whispers projected insecure feelings we brushed off with laughter. They knew not what we were once and here we are now, never again to feel as one. Looking back at the breeze that blew the cherry tree, its leaves falling on my floating hair as you brushed the sun off my eyes with your lyricist mind filled with catchy phrases of intentional purity that said one thing while your eyes portrayed another. Devious trends of adulterine and deceitful obligation to what you feel and what you show them. This tree we stood under, one here the other there, space filling between the large air we used to separate the right from wrong, the way you looked at me, the way my mind knew what it meant. You hid, I shone. The brightness cast wrinkles on your face, squinting away from the cherish-able light illuminating the dull, dry, brittle life of you. The seed sprout, the color brightened. The smile, half moon, and never again would you be the same. Once we were, now we’re not. Back into the fog, the sun set long ago. The leaves are gone, autumn came and went now the branches are twigs held up by bitter frost clenching for warmth. The ground is a solid rock of heart, no more green sways as waves of cleansing water radiating the deep night’s sea of life. My hair whips onto my chapped lips, no more moisture, no more warming looks of affection. No more. Now we’re not.