BRIDGES OF

SENTIMENT

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Music sweeps me into a hurricane of history.

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Three beats of intro and I’m whisked to a past long dormant.

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My skin is electrified and my heart beats in sync, hurtled through time to a place once called home.

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A voice rises and sinks, catching every wave, like a ship sailing vast swollen oceans.

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I’m dashed against bridges of sentiment, rhythmic verses and melody so sacred I can only surrender.

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By the time I arrive at the port of summer in the year we met, I’m weather-beaten, sea-sick and starved.

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Stepping onto the wharf of country fair, fading sunshine warms my bones, grassy fields steady my stride and the smell of hay bales nourish my depleted soul.

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It was here, at the age of newfound freedoms, I was seen for the first time. Where an invitation to dance caused our bodies to collide. An accidental fate?

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Under the canopy of fairy lights and a thousand stars, you pull me close.

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Soap and cigarettes. Striking and strange. I try not to step on your scuffed leather boots.

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The present was ours. Three minutes of now. Then a voyage, undertaken by innocence.

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Forgotten lyrics roll over my tongue and fill my mouth—your lips tasted of Bourbon and coke.

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The guitar fades and the winds return.

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A memory for a lifetime, made a lifetime ago.

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Don’t let me leave, let me stay a while longer, the crickets have just started to sing.

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Now, replay the song and turn up the volume—one more dance for the long-suffering.

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The End

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© Michelle Upton