Almost sun up
the tinder box within my chest
is scratched free of ignition
I have nothing left to light
against encroaching darkness
for so long, it was only you
who kept me burning, fed the diminished
flame within
now, cold weather comes hunchbacked
like a visiting relation who has
no regard,
streets are emptied, as ducklings for feasting are
short-lived in their joy, for we live in a climate
spoilt with her bounty
the people proclaim Winter their enemy
hiding inside, till blessed sun returns
to bake streets into their usual direct lines.
I have always loved the cold
for it is somber, serious, it does not apologize
for not laughing or smiling toothily for a photo
the cold is an adult, a survivor
and my warmth is now swept out
into the street to nourish next years
growth.
You have left me ransacked, weighed with grief
or rather, I permitted it
with my need to divest you with
my self keeping
it was you see, a way to continue
waking up in the morning
brushing hair, scrubbing feet
clean of their midnight chase into darkness
where if I stayed long enough
I might find no way out.
I used instead, the succor of your regard
for me, a diminished thing in a shiny coat
of false expectation, as hibiscus bloom
just before frost, as if daring it to
kill
knowing, one day, the flint
would no longer strike alight
the flame no more catch
and we’d be without fire, without warmth
without familiarity or loyalty.
As those who feel and then feel nothing
ransacked void with wilted affection
the chill of their galloping regard
worse than any Winter storm
for knowing your hater is surely
a greater pain than strangers who harm
just for the merriment of it.
I know you. I see the emptiness in your eyes
these years have rinsed out slowly like a series
of rogued pinches and double-exposures
I understand, too well, just as
I see my own senseless defeat
lain on unflinching wet ground, not moving
for the cold has washed over and she is
frozen in her private grimace.
Some of us can carry on
without the light of another
I have long existed without harmony
safety, even sanity, but I cannot lose, no
I cannot bear to, the surround of you.
If it comes then, you will find me
a memory in a long story, a footnote to something
larger than us all, lost in yellowed paper and indistinct
photos of past, growing longer with each yawn
and outside of us, that tree will still stand
in 200 years, we will have children born and
die here on this land, where the dead are
forgotten to we who roamed once, through the ravages of
time and her pitiless relinquishment of mercy.
It is the way, of mortality, even love may be mortal
in how she closes up sacrosanct and inviolable like a flower
denied light
refusing to bloom again. You say
nothing because your mouth is
filled with ashen excuses, and moving on and
what you’ll do next; it is a tempest, a fever
beneath your skin, lending you the fugue-state to
live again, for you are from your mercurial ancestors
a kind of people who always find ways to
endure, as if doing so, will make you more
memorable.
I then, I am not like you, nor ever have
possessed, the penchant for survival you tout, it doesn’t
matter much, we are all going to be
soot and lost words before long
the race, the belief we matter, is just
grime on our sleeves as we pass
through. I have seen a world
without me, as I have witnessed a life without
you, they are all echoes of each other
betraying the faith I had never quite built
knowing you would leave
observing in your eyes before you were aware
the emptiness of regard, how softly we skim
life’s abundant surface, like we hardly land
at all. At times it does not feel like it can
be real, this ache, this movement toward
self-destruction, surely this is not how it ends
and yet, years become decades and still
we find ourselves, curled into a ball, waiting
out the cold, a frigid breeze coming in
beneath the door, reminding us, no matter
how much we may like the Winter
it can surely kill.
Woman
Why
TheFeatheredSleep 