Intermission...

I have eight hours of spare time. Free to wander about, trapped in transit, between one country and the next, in a giant coloured ball of an airport.

I have not slept in eighteen hours, but this glitzy, cotton-candied ferris wheel has me awake.

People have slowed...dragging their languid eyes and heels... because their bodies have said that the time is dark night.

Almost morning.

Work breathes deeply, finishing with me in tired satisfaction.

I make lists.

Starbucks, after months.

And desire. Or some such thing.

Relief...

I can be perfectly, mostly, absolutely and importantly in joy at my present...
I can be morally, informedly, entirely and so consciously at peace for having moved on...
I can be superbly, supremely, so rightly, fanatically relieved that it wasn't meant to be, that I made the right decision...
I can be bodily, heartily, sensationally, savagely a better, brighter, happier, hotter whole for having left the past behind and lived life ten fold...

What is it about love that never fully goes away, even after I've left the room and locked the door behind me.

What is it about a photograph of you...or a sly touched up memory... that solicits a grudging wry smile...

What is it about our past that has never fully ceased to exist...even when it is so wonderful that it is not our present...

Liar.

And yet, you shameless, painted peacock. A picture of you can still make me smile.