February 2006

Concrete Love Affair

    I tried to leave you the first time - when the walls were closing in and your familiarity was a pillow pressed upon my face.


    I watched you from the window but could not bear to abandon what we had built on this cracked foundation, despite my growing dissatisfaction of experience, only having known you all my adult life.


    Last night, the pit of my ulcering heart throbbed, begging for escape. I let the wheels guide themselves with you as my only company once again. Your noisy silence surrounded and deafened me. My foot pressed heavier on the gas.


    You seemed cheap and dirty as I drove the streets which echo the musty glamour that you own so well. I saw the disappointment of so many written upon you and became aware you, too, had been fooled by the hushed whispers of the traveling dreamers.


    I caught your distraction out the corner of my eye. Your lustrous beauty had become the weathered face of day labor and unappreciated hard work.


    We drove in silence.

    We did not breathe.


    Whipping through canyons I could taste your sadness. I reluctantly felt conveyed to wipe the mud from your cheek. I wanted to see you as I once did, when you excited me.


    The ocean screamed for you from my left as the rocky walls answered back claiming ownership of your spirit.


    I inhaled your air then, and allowed you to invade me as I always do. I became you. You, my own lost city of angels, I am just one of many, who hate to adore you.


    I wanted you then, as you were, and as you are. To feel your curves while speeding home, as I have long since memorized your inner workings.


    Feeling like a foolish child, I asked your forgiveness, begging for your aloof and uncaring attention.


    You smiled at me and kissed my vulnerability. Aware of my dependency on you for survival. Aware that you define me, that you have since I was born.


    I embraced you with the passion of a thousand lovers, and placed my hand onto the cold concrete of your skin to feel I was once again a part of you.


    You have always been my first true love.

copyright 2005 Tiffany Lettieri