Wide Open Time

I find myself craving the sun-kissed mornings,

The taste of raspberries and whipped cream.

.

The way the light fell

Just so

Through flung-open curtains—

Dancing on the brick walls.

.

Was there music playing?

I strain my ears,

Reaching into recesses of memory,

But come up blank.

.

Perhaps there was only the sound of a thumping dog tail

And your sleepy breath—

A percolating pot of coffee,

A music all its own.

.

I yearn to slip into that body,

Tauter somehow,

Though I treated it worse.

.

Want to feel the ache of wide-open time

With one hundred ways to fill it.

.

I do not want to relive what I’ve done.

Not again.

.

I’ve already lived the life where I missed the laughter,

The joy and fear of freedom,

Because I was busy,

Trying to be busy.

.

Where the taste of fresh fruit was eclipsed

In champagne,

Then beer,

Then tequila.

.

I hold the memory because I want a do-over,

To be 26 again.

To kiss 26-year-old you,

All young lips and thrown-back heads.

.

I idealize those days now,

Though I so rarely stopped

To notice how that sunlight fell on my bare thighs

As I lounged in bed,

Bloodshot eyes staring at my phone,

While you intertwined your fingers with mine.

.

What a waste to have lived it

The way I did.

.

What a waste to now

Rewrite the memory as only romance

Or only addiction.

.

Somehow it was both,

Woven together.

.

Like our legs akimbo while we slept,

Or the way the darkness and the shadows moved

Like lattice,

Like lace, across the hardwood floor,

As the sunlight faded

On my twenties.