Between Lines

She was the woman who pressed gingko leaves between the pages of your countless, unfinished autobiographies. She was the one with smiles streaking easily down her cheeks. Remember her now? The one who kept her eyes hidden behind near-white lashes and ran her fingers, so expertly, across long-untuned piano keys. Her skin reminded you then, of madrona bark, as dark and smooth as that of any beach born tree. She was silk between your fingers once, or at least that is how you put it.

She had sea glass eyes, you said, and she was somehow insufferable and desirable at the exact same moments. Her pulse matched the beat to every one of her favorite songs and you liked so much to watch her get lost with the fireflies. Are you recalling her yet? The one who held you, wanted you, cried with you, all those nights when you fell to your knees and knew you were at your very worst. She knew it to, and she didn't care. She was the sun in your eyes once, staining your bones and leaving you breathless.

She was the one who loved blood and cellular structures and so often dreamed of burning her old poems. The woman who closed her heart completely and painted peacock feathers onto her skin; she never once stopped believing in you. Can you almost see her now, ensnared warmly in the folds of your memory? The one who belonged in cities or on the open road, but could never fit in the spaces between the lines. She was the fog over the bay, once, grey and bleak and so very, very ephemeral.

The woman who lusted, haunted; the one you miss so very fiercely and somehow are refusing to forget. I'm sure you know now the one I mean. She spent her nights sleeping on windowsills, hoping that, somehow, she would simply fall through the glass and disappear, halfway to the ground. The girl who lit all your candles and set fire to every one of your ancient books. She loved you dizzyingly and proved it to you in every way she could. She was the light in your life once, but she turned too soon into the smoke in your lungs.