distance (part thirty-four)

There's that picture of us, the first one of us,
The one from the backseat of the car that took us
To the dance trip from heaven
      (in hindsight, from hell,
      for all the pain I stirred up over it later)
,
And all it shows is the back of our heads,
      except for the back of your right shoulder,
      and your right arm,
      and your right hand at one o'clock on the wheel,
      and then
...
There's the rearview mirror,
      and all it affords the viewer
      is a permanent glance at
your eyes.

For the longest time,
      (but what wasn't really the longest time,
      because it was only while we were good,
      while we were great,
      while you had me in the cradle of your phantom lead,
          [cradling the back of my head so tenderly,
          yet full of light bursting at the seams of the shade containing it]
      )
I had to keep looking at pictures of you to remember what color your eyes were.
For the life of me,
I couldn't fucking remember the color of your goddamn eyes.
      Your perfect eyes.
      I remember how they warmed me up when we made eye contact.
      I remember how they were big enough to let all the light in,
      Not too deep-set into the dark recesses of your mind
          (Did you? Do you? Have any?)
      ,
      And close enough together.
      Perfect.

This picture--
      That I found--
          of us--
              us--
it says your eyes are blue.
I just remember them as good, and sometimes,
on me.

Did I create any dark recesses in your mind?
You left some in mine.
You left a sizeable dent in my hara. 

I would never come after you... 
But sometimes I dream that I do.
And sometimes,
I dream that you find me.

And I wake up, frightened and enraged,
Before I remember
that I never cross your neural highways
     (for fear of being run over, you know)
.

I will never draw you a map;
You will never come looking. 

-Dana Winter