With the wisdom of long years and many failed expeditions, I observed silently your wounded smile, your careful laugh, your wild eyes. I found you beneath an avalanche of folly and plans long ago gone awry and forgotten.
I glimpsed, then your true self, unmirrored and true.
How quickly you built for me another life, unfolded a fantasy of a darkened cloakroom, moon whispering white across bare skin and warm hands.
You insisted I had found you, had rediscovered you. A cascade of bright longing and secret lusts sprang forth from a heart unstoppered for all the world like a champagne bottle. We laughed and were drenched and twisted in the wet.
I braved the tundra, the rocks and ice. I felt for the path beneath the terrible will of the fog, then grew parched beneath a venomous sun. All the while, looking for you. I waited for morning, licking dew from a few ragged leaves, and by nightfall was lost beneath a terrible seething jungle.
Now that I have lost you again, I only curse the path, look for signs and symbols in the sun and the burning green grass.
Without destination, I turn inward like a broken compass, wait in a willful silence for the phone to ring, for your voice, your key in the door.
Version 2
i like both versions but my vote is for the original version. there was something about the first lines that pulled you along to the end. there was a mysteriousness that was conjured up through the word choice.
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