Member Poem

I think that’s what I felt
As you passed by me
Our gazes discovered diamonds beneath our feet
Unscented breezes that never are familiar slid by
You didn’t say a word
Neither did I because—
White wings were beating against my ribcage and I just couldn’t breathe
Not enough oxygen was reaching this beating flesh within my chest
The tremble of my cut tongue only drew my heart aching
Is this the call of another heart
And the response of a yearning?
Yearning the nearning of wishful fate’s unclosed door
I saw it was still left open and prayed
Prayed I could reach before it was too late
But
I was waiting for you first
Or were you waiting for me—
My dove sheds tears on her white feathers as nobody feels
This unseen suffocating silence
They lead to answers questioned for their lacking presence
Did you—
Want to?
I could never tell
Just like I can never tell what lies beneath the mother bird’s breast
The delicate baby bird 
Held by gentle hands I’ve never seen before
Within the chest—
Your chest.
Holds a heart so delicate
Yet the glimpses of the flutter of its wings
Are so hard to contain on my fingertips
Like the yellow dust on the opening bud of a sunflower
I wouldn’t say a rose
Because did rose petals touch my cheeks?
When my eyelashes kissed the curve of my cheeks
And I ask! Who plucked the rose
When our gazes suddenly found diamonds beneath my feet
But rather, was this yellow dust merely
Passing quickly as a shadow
Is this why the dust never stained my fingertips
But only blew away in your unscented breezes that never are familiar
A distant memory perhaps?
Like the blurred photographs of the evening street
Soon left faded, a softened night
Did I hear words you did not?
Did unsaid words brush the air
Like leaves scattering over the ripples of this lake
This very lake I’m drowning in
As you passed by me
I think that’s what I felt.