Komorebi

The sideways glance of a secret lover
long ago lost, filtering through faces in the crowd,
meets yours across the long room.
Your longing creates a web of emptiness on the dance floor.

His eyes dig into desires in your undergrowth,
as if one brush of the air from his gliding fingers
falling on your dry skin, and you would,
still, crumble into the shadows.

A stolen conversation in forgotten words,
in corners of virtual worlds –
a word here, a picture there,
sometimes spoken, mostly imagined –
and the light whips into your insides,
where darkness had left you dry.

Picture Credits: A friend.
The title “Komorebi” is a Japanese word meaning roughly “sunlight streaming through the trees”, an image I have been obsessed with forever. I wrote a poem on this theme a couple of years ago as well, but then times were different, I was different.