A Billion Burning Dreams

Enigma Machines My DNAwas constructed from forked, binary tongues, the Morse code of typewriter keys, like Fred Astaire’s feet, tapping out fairytales to my zygote. Has anyone ever captured the sound of disappointment? You can hear a pin drop

in the atriums of an empty heart, but I guess no one ever told you how silence can kill. I have heard 10,000 symphonies exploding in the span of your long pauses, waiting with baited breath to feel a nibble from your interred affections. Some nights, I dream of conversations yearned for while seated on subway trains, sipping coffee that never tastes the same as how you fixed it. I take it the way you won’t take me back: Half-and-half, bittersweet. I caught a glimpse of the nape of your neck and swear I felt my soul leap out of my skin,

travel gravel distances, only to transcend regret inside your navel.

14