A Love Story

The moment lasted for so long that I had enough time to count all the perforations in your summer leather jacket.
I diligently studied the collar, noting how it creases after years of you stealing a quick stretch of chin forward.
The collar used to have more stars sewn along it, but the one in the back is missing, leaving just the holes from the stitching and the slightly whiter leather underneath hinting at it's existence.
I wonder if you know that it's gone.
The details come in and out of range as the streetlights move across the sky but I can safely ignore the frantic pace set by highway speeds because I know, in this space, the moment will just keeping holding still for me.
I started counting but quickly lost myself the pattern.
This jacket says it all but does so quietly, assured of it's proper place in the scheme of this thing.
I think of you, the day that you flew through the air and broke the zipper on the arm and I'm vaguely jealous of that brief freedom, even knowing that your freedom was probably infused with trepidation - or even fear.
Even knowing I would never be brave enough to take it if it were offered.
Still it sits there, that jealous piece, and all I can do is touch your shoulder and share it in some physical way I don't fully understand.
If I put my mind to the task, though, I know the understanding will come to me - I have so much time.
My heart wants to tell you to keep going. Find the road along the wall of bluffs, where my left side is cooler than my right and I can hear the water.
Find the curve with the perfect apex and no one in our way.
Find the moment with me and hold it gently.
And in the world of imperfection that we struggle through I'm so deeply sorry for all the wounds that still bleed;
I can begin counting the scars healed over and I'm sad for those, too, in a regretful way.
Suddenly the moment changes and becomes something different, something faintly crazed
And then I go back to my usual state of being, turning in time with everyone else.