Too Little, Too Late

Your eyes and lips team up to smile, and your face is lined with joy, slightly bronzed by the Austrian star with a radiance of equal warmth.

The setting is surreal. But I see you as real, and from the moment I sit by your side, your spirit enchants
my heart
reels.

Laughter is our first language, and inside jokes are second. We dance upon Alpine daggers and frolick through hilted passes. Lungs gasp and muscles ache, but I soar when adjacent to you. Though sweaty and bruised, your beauty peruses my heart and knows something my head doesn’t know yet.

Freedom comes by hard earned days, and our comrades? They celebrate by knocking back, slamming shots till tables crack. I would too if it wasn’t for you and my preference to play our same silly card game. Sitting at the table our eyes engage
— what words are exchanged that lips cannot say? —
until late in the night, when that annoying plight separates us until the next day.

You get off the train, and I act brave (with a hug and a smile) as my heart collapses in a heap of ash.

Though a nation apart, in the middle we meet, and this fantasy of you and me comes to life as we reconvene in rockier peaks. Twenty-four hours isn’t enough, but a year has passed that is, somehow, too much. So I curse the years that change and frame past love with present wants!

Because now all you are is the impossible standard, and all the others are unfairly measured, and this declaration to friends and strangers
is too little, too late.