Love Poem: Escaping the Mud
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Written by: Corey Bryan

Escaping the Mud

I can still hear her boots hit the pavement as she walks away. Her sanguine footsteps swallowed up by the greedy black night, feasting on her departure. Waning moonlight silhouettes every lithe movement, the winter air highlighting every hot breath. I fill my lungs with air, its cold fingers tear at my lungs and sink into my chest as I watch her disappear into the concrete ocean. The leaves walk down the street holding hands with the wind, casting worried looks my way, laughing, but lack the courage to look me in the eye. Their judgment ignites my tinderbox of rage, and the fear and longing and despair and grief and loss and regret and guilt and loneliness come alive in a conflagration of purple and green and yellow and orange and red and blue and pink and black. It burns fast and bright as it wrestles with the cold inside me, breaking its fingers to loosen the icy grip on my lungs and I send a desperate prayer to her, reaching for her, pleading for her to turn around and come back to me. She escapes my grasp, like pulling heavy footfall out of freshly watered mud, when the muck only lets go reluctantly, and she wipes her shoes on the doormat as she walks inside, alone.