heat lightning

He holds her hips between tender fingertips and she leans into the blanket of his body.
With her head on his chest, she closes her eyes and sighs for the life she can't let herself live.

When he tells her his truths, she bites her lip and avoids his smoldering stare.
He tells her she's beautiful and she shyly accepts the compliment from a sometimes stranger.

Making inches-away eye contact, her heart isn't filled with butterflies.

It's so full it could burst into blossom.

She later sits alone on the porch, watching the lightning in the dark.

And wonders why she can't let herself be happy.