Never Written by David M. Taylor

I studied your body tonight,
the story of your hips,
and punctuation of your walk.

I imagined the novel we’d create,
how I’d become the main character
who pulls you away from your life,
where we’d hide
in a lost cabin forgotten by the world
or a silhouetted townhouse in Manhattan.

The details didn’t matter as much as the plot
and where our words would take us.

I pictured us walking beneath the moonlight,
how my breath betrayed me in the chilled air,
but you laughed at my stories anyway.

I even heard the soundtrack,
the slow pacing of music building
until it crashed to the earth.

But I know it would all end in conflict,
that the resolution would escape my fingertips
because I’m not the main character
who could pull you away from your life,
and you’ll forever be the novel never written.

 David M. Taylor teaches at a community college in St. Louis, MO. His work has appeared in various magazines such as Albany Poets, Misfit Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, and Trailer Park Quarterly. He was also a finalist for the 2017 Annie Menebroker Poetry Award and has four poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which is Growing up Black.