I think I like this piece.

I've read it out loud and it's just...I dunno; it's nice.

I tried making Sasuke the lovesick one and Sakura The One Who Got Away -I reversed their roles, if you know what I mean. I also put it in Sasuke's POV just for the challenge.

Hope you like it. :

Eurhythmy

In the summer you brought back beautiful gifts,

I wanted to give you something, but found only

The drifting sky,

Can you wear it?

The Snow Fox, by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

i.

She was beautiful in the way that apricots only last for a season and a half, part transcendental etherealness and part corporeal humanity, glamorous noise and shivering pain, wrapped in yellowed sheets and shadowed dreams.

"Be mine," she had whispered, beckoning in all her lucid glory.

I had followed.

you don't give me

rings or

diamonds but

your copper kisses

and absent

morbidity

-they are worth it

ii.

I pursued her relentlessly, following her over and over again, falling for her over and over again.

She wandered the graying hallways, quick-footed, leaving behind a swirl of dust and broken butterfly-cobwebs, leaving behind me.

I chased, footsteps ringing thump-da-dump down the concrete and stone.

I was always behind her, just a foot or two, and she would never look behind.

And when I was a hairs-breadth, a wingspan, a cry and a whisper away from her, she would stop, and I would listen to her smile amidst the dim autumn sun showers and crumbling walls.

"Be mine," she would murmur again, and then she would run, crisp silhouette bright against the million doorways and endless corridors.

And I would run.

She never turned around.

let's fall

because i'm immune to gravity

and you just don't care

iii.

One day, she stopped running.

I had looked at her, confused, but she merely knelt down.

"I'm tired," she breathed out, and I nodded.

"Let's stop," she began, "let's just stop and let's just stay here."

I stared at her.

"You don't understand, do you?" Her voice cracked, and she was silent.

She got up, and she started running.

I chased after her.

"Be mine," she cried in my arms, the first time she fell, over and over again.

"You're mine," I replied, over and over again.

And I would fall for her some more, knowing that it would never happen, that we would never happen.

We were already given our chance long ago.

We had already fallen long ago.

We kept on running.

i think i've finally

discovered

something better than

love

when you

cradle

me

asleep

iv.

I don't know when we started forgetting why we ran; I just remember the absence of seeing her back, her hair streaming down, the whites of her ankles glimmer-glittering in the sun, and the curve of the nape of her neck.

And suddenly, I was the one in front; I was the one ahead of her.

The sun burning a hole into the moonless sky, slowly scorched my eyes.

I found I could not stop seeing the sun, even with my eyes closed as I ran.

Eventually, I became accustomed to her fluttering breaths behind me, tickling my hair.

And just as inevitably, I realized that her silhouette, these arms and legs and those dove ankles and that swan neck and this back –they had all shielded me from the too-bright horizon, a future in which we had no part of.

And I understood her.

I was tired.

but you flinch at

my touch and i

suddenly believe what

you said that

love can never be

perfect without

pain

v.

I kept running, but I slowed down, and the empty corridors and hallways seemed to stretch on between the wide-open expanses of sky.

The doors were open, but our eyes were closed.

I wanted to fill in the gap between us with my arm and her fingers, to enfold her in the space between my time and hers.

"Are you tired?" She asked again.

I nodded.

And I saw a flash of those arms and legs and that curve of the nape of her neck and those white ankles and her back all over again.

I heard her smile, a crack of dawn and a snap of twilight.

And I knew, just as I knew we would finally stop running, that no one, not even Marlowe with his shepherd's poem and Raleigh with his nymph's reply and Frost with his divided roads and Cummings with his raindrops and boys and girls and Dickinson with her words and bones would ever, ever be able to describe that moment.

It was the moment we fell in love.

It was the moment we realized that it would never happen again.

It was the moment we stopped running.

i would be okay

with the silence

and your dry kisses

if my breathing weren't

so loud

vi.

And after a thousand suns and a million words, I was starstruck.

The flick of her wrist, the delicate arch of her ear, the shimmer of her breathing –I was in awe.

"Why do you stay with me?" She questioned one night, below the sparkling sky and above the emerald grass.

"You're all I have," I replied.

She turned away from me.

"I shouldn't be here."

She looked pointedly at her evanescent-transparent-lucid arm.

I looked away.

"But you are," I stated, "and I am as well."

"I'm dead," she protested.

"I'm alive," I argued.

"I can't run anymore," she sighed, and clasped my fingers, hers running over mine.

"I still have your ring," I whispered.

"I can't run."

"We can still walk."

It rained that night, and Raleigh's nymph would have been proud.

the wide-open

spaces

between your mouth

and mine

are delicious

vii.

We didn't walk; we just lay there, in the middle of the plaster and blue sky.

She wanted it to storm.

I would have rather that it drizzled.

We were granted neither, and warm breezes caressed us into infinity.

That night, she was aglow.

I was asleep.

We were dying.

She was already dead.

And I was following her, always behind.

i knew that

this was love

when I wanted to

destroy the

world

all for you

viii.

"I'll be your Catherine," she murmured one night, "and you'll be my Heathcliff. And we'll haunt this earth forever, together."

I smiled.

"Darling, you're already haunting this earth."

Her frown sliced up the silence.

"I don't want you to leave."

I shook my head and comforted her.

"I'll always be behind you."

That night, I dreamt I ran.

i think it's funny how

i manage to get

'ravage' and

'ravish' mixed

up –

will you

ravage me?

ix.

"You're so pink you're blue," she stated as she played with my mussed hair.

I woke up to her gentle sighing and allowed her to do as she pleased.

"Because I'm yours," I replied simply.

She stared at me for a moment, long enough for a moth's kiss and a dragonfly's hum, and I saw how green-emerald-saccharine her eyes were.

"Be mine," she whispered.

I chased her amidst the flowers and broken butterflies.

That day, I was the shepherd, and she was my Raleigh.

hello

i think

we're

getting there

x.

I think I'm starting to breathe slower, walk slower, and dream slower.

The wind is chilly and settles in my bones, but she is as beautiful as ever.

There was a time when I would have done anything to die.

I'm scared now.

I don't want to lose my given chance.

She's already lost hers.

And if I die, I'm not so sure I'll haunt this endless breadth of bare sky with her.

I want us to stay the same.

But alas, there are only twenty-four hours in a day.

we are completely and totally

in love

and we cannot help that

xi.

She rests her head in my lap today.

I think this is what contentment feels like.

together we are your liaison

xii.

I'm so tired I can hardly watch her bend down and lie next to me.

I close my eyes, and I know that it is time.

Our hands are clasped, and my ring is etched into hers.

The whites of her ankles and the curve of the nape of her neck follow as my heart wears out.

It is tired of running.

I am tired of beating.

I leave Marlowe and Raleigh behind with the approaching storm.

The flowers wither.

they are beautiful and

we can't help

this

xiii.

I see her running ahead of me and she is beautiful amongst the cataclysm of this world

She is beautiful in the way that apricots only last for a season and a half, part transcendental etherealness and part corporeal humanity, glamorous noise and shivering pain, wrapped in yellowed sheets and shadowed dreams.

"Be mine," she whispers, beckoning in all her lucid glory.

I follow, my luminous-clear-transparent hand warm in hers.

It is fitting; she had always been ahead of me in life.

In death it is the same.

It is the same.

Maybe this is what love is.

I think this is it.

And so we fall, over and over again, amidst the glowing sky and eroding walls in this endless building and too-bright horizon as the whites of her ankles lead the way again.

That summer and this life and that death –I am moonstruck.

Reviews?