Are there days in your calendar
That are empty?
Are there thoughts so loud in your head
That refuse to let you sleep?
Are there lists with little check-boxes
That taunt you?
Are there hours and days and years
That were swallowed anonymously?
Are there others with lives and dreams and achievements
That make yours seem small?
Are there any traces of the child and the teenager
That you once were?
Are there ways to change the heart
That won’t wound you and bleed you to death?
Are there words within you, deep within you
That have forgotten how to be born through your hand?
Are you there anymore?
Do you exist?
I still walk alone
But now there’s a shadow
Beside mine
I think it’s you, but
There’s no need to
Turn around
I’ve reached a cliff
With a final decision
To make:
To take a step forward
And feel the air
Compress my existence
Or,
To sit down at
The very edge and see
The world for both
Of us;
Live my life knowing
Your shadow
Is a delusional burden
I carry willingly
Battles between you and me
Are the ones I lost
Even before they begun
But I entered the field anyway
And my pride always held my head
My voice rang with determination
Singing in my veins
And I threatened you with
Consequences dire
My words eloquent, I screamed
Like a right wronged
Like a bird caged
Like a life wasted
***
And in such contrived strength
Is my power
I put up my act for me to judge
For me to be convinced; and finally
To believe
And once I have believed this farce
You never stood a chance
You might as well pack your knives
You were never here to bathe in my lust
You were never here to see me shed my fears
You were never here to hear me sing
You were never here to tell me I should move on
*
We were always swallowed by a distance
Always away even in the same room…
It’s like going back in time
To the places you’ve been before
But this time they are bereft of people
Empty of action
Silent in words
And there I see the ghosts of our past
Walking down the cobbled alleys
I see them smiling, fighting, eating, drinking
Just walking….walking
It’s a yellow town
And a white lie
It’s a rocky coast
And a sea with salt from my eyes
It was the shortest of lives
And the deepest of all
****
To this place I will return
Without choice or effort
It’s here that I saw beyond myself
And fell into the abyss that you seem now
I might have clambered up the slippery walls
Into what the world believes is real. Practical.
But.
My soul wanders the yellow town
Alone in the past.
I have your number and a phone without numbers to dial
I have your picture and an empty album
I have your voice and ears without their facility
I have your clothes and a body that fails to hold them
I have your breath and some skin that lies dead
I have your flowers and some stalks with prickly thorns
I have some tears and eyeballs that have dried up
I have more of my love and no more of your demands
I have myself and the knowing that you aren’t mine anymore
I miss you like the rain that stopped
The minute I woke up
I wish you were here like the chocolate
That I craved for and couldn’t find
I wish we had never split
Like the necklace of pearls come unstrung
We should have never met
Like eyes of strangers walking so close
Nobody would believe my
Dearth of brilliance
Nobody would know my
Set, practiced lines
Nobody would feel my
Lack of inspiration
Nobody would hear me swear
In filthy bursts
Nobody. Not even you.
My memories are mine.
With or without you.
I will fight your claim over them
As much as I will fight any other
Who presumes a claim over
My memories of you.
Auto Incorrect 