Walking the apple trails

  Painful to contain

  the giddy sugar rush

  of new love, uncertain love,

  love that walks side by side

  but does not reach out for your hand,

  reaches uncertainly for your heart.

  Walking the apple trails

  like a twenty-first century

  Adam and Eve, surrounded

  by fruit but focused on

  the sweet taste of silence

  as we stroll like Elizabeth and Darcy.

  Even the deer pause to watch

  our quiet steps, in harmony

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  with the sleepy flight of bumblebees

  in the tail end of summer,

  yellow flowers drinking in the sun’s shadows.

  Keep walking by my side

  past the end of the trail,

  to the other side of this cautiously

  spinning globe. Catch my hand

  if gravity catches me by surprise.

  No will to live alone

  Hated the car when its price tag yanked me from you.

  Hated the job when it churned like butter,

  so many hours blending together.

  Hated the goodbyes when they meant breaking

  away from your arms.

  Hated the money when it tried to tear

  my gaze away from you.

  Hated the glory of physical things,

  awards that declared me the sole ruler, solitary in my revel.

  Hated the lonely storms that raged

  when it came time to say goodnight.

  Hated the simple texts when all I wanted

  was to talk to you.

  Hated the prison that kept me safe.

  Loved the girl who dropped anchor in my port

  and proclaimed a dream to stay there a lifetime or two.