From a Distance

From a distance I’m besot with hand holding and eye gazing.

From a distance love looks gentle, flawless, and enchanting.

When it doesn’t, I look away, change the channel, turn the page.

From a distance you can be my hero, shining like your impenetrable armor.

From a distance, I can love you, you can love me – without  unnecessary assumptions.

From a distance, I won’t be disappointed when you eventually fail me.

From a distance I'm happy, content as I am, chains breaking free.

From a distance you won’t need to change me or want only parts of me.

From a distance I see you, I know you, and once loved you.

From a distance I'll wave and remember the moments I liked best

esteemed still by the apparition of romantic love, as it warms my heart, from a distance.

Panty Hose

I didn't know I could feel this way.
More me, less and less him.
The memories, however, still cling
like rain will always caress my face.
I live with the moments in bytes
in my brain, hoping for the slightest
corruption to guarantee this state will last.
I don’t want to again be lost to an
image, or become a mirage to
quench their thirst, satisfy
some unrealistic appetite.
Having pulled on a new skin
like uncomfortable panty hose
I felt I could be perfect in that skin
but oh the work to keep it on,
smothering and constricting.
I had shed other layers
endangered by invisibility
and although this exclusion
saddened me, I felt acceptable
and that this is how one is loved,
but for how long? How long could I
cram pieces of myself into a drawer
like all the lonely socks, lost, without a pair?