love under a starlit canopy
our past, present and future drifted underneath us with the shimmering blackened water.
i suppose it was when the moon dropped out of the sky for the night that i realized it. i was walking with Her in my hand, and i held tight so She would not float up away from me, rocketing toward a faux-heaven€”clouds brushing between Her light toes, making Her squirm and giggle in that special way€”like a loose balloon, perhaps some party favor or last-ditch attempt to muzzle a rowdy child at a theme park.
our two lights in the darkness, simply two flashlight beams projecting out into the darkness like some extended metaphor for the same, shone with such a radiance that it tried to blind me. i failed to see the togetherness that was our bond at the time.
it wasn€™t until we extinguished the flames with a plastic €œclick€ that i realized the world. yes, there was a world, both above and below me at the same time. above me flew the faintest soul-shimmers of heart-ache; below me rushed the turbulent turpentine of creek, brook, and stream, melting the painted dreams and plastered hopes of a million millennia madly melting into a macabre masterpiece. everything began and ended here€”the stars, the moons, the gods, the daemons, the loves. and then a solitary fragment, shiny, silver, and serpentine in nature. it suddenly dominated the scene, like a passing car or chirping frog, spinning the moment a la wheel of fortune, until both heads were dizzy. we had to wait until we regained the balance of perfection.
two lights lead me home, hand in hand. one light skipped around, singing me to tears with Her beautiful memories of youth and youthfulness, while the other beamed steadily, as if trying to be the laser it envied, broke down, and feared the everything.
with a smile and an embrace, however, the latter, still fearing the everything, closed my eyes, and forced a faint smile for the nights seen in the paint-clouded water of the starlit canopy.