georgia

when I set foot
on Georgia ground
did the echos in my heart
resound
and fill the empty cells
of yours
with memories of
the summer days
halcyon
and free?

when I set foot
on Georgia ground
did you hear the whispered sigh
of midnights spent in hush?
feel the flicker hum of
falling asleep by
screen light?
remember faintly
driving under
starlight?

did you perhaps
feel the earth
tremble
with remembered
shared moments,
almost sacrosanct?
promises made
in the naive hope
of youth?

promises broken
into shattered dreams
to be touched only
by fingertip
to bleed
onto
hallowed ground
blasphemous

did you feel me?
did that fragile red strand
still tug?

and now

I sit

crying

in an airport

in Georgia

pulling the gratifying weight of grief
around me
not a shroud
the - not quite
the - almost was
of us
of them,
(two young and foolish lovers)
trembling on my lips

our choices
made
apart
irrevocably
-but still-
regrettable
even if that regret means
pain
even if that regret
doesn't go all the way down
to the depths

doesn't shift
continents

but it's there
the knowledge
of the might have been,
immutable,
like the constellations

but

we both made choices
and now we're bound
by  vows made
to people found

by things we thought we wanted
and things we truly did
and
by the love we made in the process

so far from our own