Gold & Honey & You

I only get to have you in pieces. In minutes. In private. 

I collect them. I put them together and think I see all of you. But I know I don't. Because I don't get to have all of you. Because you refuse to give yourself to me. 

Yet, I don't accept it. I shout, "This is all of him! I can hold him, all of him, right here!!" and I open my hands and stacked are pieces of you. The edges uneven. Incomplete. Hardly resembling a person. More like a constellation. 

But I look down at them and pull them close and hold them tight. They are mine. 

I love them. They warm me up, they shock my heart with joy. They are dipped in gold and honey and cluttered with wild flowers and smell like rain on cracked ground. 

So I think I hold you. But I don't. You are gone. You stand on an island near a land I've never heard of. One I'll never find. 

Now the pieces are worn. I can no longer look at them and see you. I only see how much I have cherished something that did not love me. 

I'll lay your pieces down to rest before their edges grow sharp. Before they tear me up. 

But only after I hold them a little while longer.