Left Behind

Having returned
I stand over your naked form
dig bleeding moons –
crescents, waxing
into my palms.
Sleep turns you to marble
the color of a dying storm,
of a memory
here at daybreak.
I stand
over your white question mark of a body:
so close, yet
so inaccessible.

Old habits die hard,
and my greedy secret sorrows
left our love to freeze
beneath dried leaves.
But how to explain
the whirr of wings in my head?
How to articulate
the way I am transported
through the windows of my skull
to an existence of forgotten memories?
How to rationalize
that those memories are
my immortal muse?
You told me my memories consume,
leaving me only ever on the verge of happiness,
and you can’t stand there with me,
swaying on the street corner.

Well, having returned
to stand swaying over you
I can say this:
The stars may go round
and round
in my head,
but they bring me such joy
as I cannot find anywhere else.
Within my silence
there is beauty,
and if you had but stepped when
though rarely, invited
into my forest to see
that sunlight and shadows
indeed chase each other on the wind,
playing a game with no winner,
you’d have seen the truth in my eyes:
a great glowing purpose
mixed with the fire
of suppressed fury.

So sleep.
Sleep in your question mark form,
in your hypocritical lack of care to understand.
You are a dying storm.
You are marble.
You are left behind.

 

Published by The Clementine Zine, August 2020