THE UNSCHEDULED

 

The Unscheduled 

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You tossed the calendar aside,

Its grid of appointments—

Dentist at ten, meeting at three—

Scribbled over with a reckless flourish,

A middle finger to the tyranny of shoulds.

Instead, you penciled in chaos,

The tearing down of walls,

Brick by brick,

Dust swirling in the air like a lover’s breath—

Trading the safety of uncertainty’s cage

For the wild, what-the-hell sprawl of opportunity,

A gamble with no odds,

Just the thrill of the dice rolling free.

Time bent under your will,

Hours unshackled,

And I followed,

A moth drunk on your flame,

Drawn into the heat of your untamed orbit.  

I fell, willing prey,

To the seduction of that voice—

A lipstick-lesbian lilt,

Velvet-wrapped steel,

Dripping with honey and smoke,

A siren’s call curling through the din.

It slithered into my ears,

Warm and dangerous,

Pooling low in my gut,

A tease I couldn’t shake.

Her encouragement flashed like neon,

Electric arcs sparking across bar rooms,

Any given Monday night—

The jukebox thumping,

Glasses clinking,

Sweat and bourbon thick in the air.

She leaned close,

Her words a dance of shadow and light,

Cutting through the haze of strangers’ laughter,

Pulling me into her gravity,

A pull I didn’t fight.  

During private corridor smoke breaks,

The world shrank to a narrow strip—

Cigarette embers glowing red in the gloom,

Tendrils of gray curling upward,

Walls streaked with years of spilled secrets.

There, in the flicker of a dying bulb,

She offered disclosures,

Whispers sharp as a blade’s edge,

Implying intimacy without a single touch—

Her breath grazing my cheek,

A phantom caress,

Her eyes glinting with promises unspoken,

Lips parting just enough to let the truth slip free.

Each confession landed soft,

A pebble in the still waters of my chest,

Ripples spreading wide,

Stirring depths I hadn’t plumbed

Till her voice carved them open.  

Given the genius of her experiences,

A mosaic of nights stitched with grit and grace,

There’s no doubt she mastered me—

Gave me lap dances of emotiveness,

No skin required,

Just the sway of her words,

The rhythm of her gaze locking mine.

She moved through me,

A slow grind of feeling,

Hips of sentiment rocking against my soul,

Her stories a choreography of raw and tender—

The bar’s sticky floor a stage,

The smoke a curtain,

Her presence a spotlight I couldn’t dim.

I was her audience,

Captive, breathless,

Swaying to the beat of her revelations,

Each one a brush of heat

Against the cold of my guarded heart.  

Those walls you tore down,

They weren’t just mine—

They were hers too,

Crumbling under the weight of her audacity,

The reckless joy of her what-the-hell grin.

Monday nights stretched into a blur,

A reel of bar stools and half-empty bottles,

Her voice threading through the clamor,

A lifeline I clung to in the dark.

I traded certainty for her chaos,

The calendar’s neat squares for her jagged edges,

And found myself tangled in her orbit—

Smoke breaks stretching into confessions,

Flashes of her eyes igniting the air,

Her lipstick-stained laughter painting the night.

She danced through me,

Emotive, untouchable,

A genius of intimacy woven from words,

Leaving me unraveled,

Penciled into her story,