Found
I
Unmoored by
spectacles, my
features float like
boats adrift in
the vast ocean
of my face. From
land—claims
that shadow and
light will tow
them where they
need be. From
water—curiosities
about the shadow
of doubt that
contours need.
II
Grow fond
almost of this
constructive
pain, this
satisfying
soreness that
ushers back
stubborn
adventurers
attempting
beyond their
rightful place.
Though, who’s
to say these
teeth are
straying, not
returning?
Still, wear out
this retainer
before it turns
retriever turns
retreater, before
you wear out
this belief that
healing should
always hurt.
Nothing
These days, I only ever see you in slumber and memory, your manifestation never more than light and air. Yet, your physicality from a lifetime ago remains, confusing all my senses. Lingers on, the warmth of your arm around my shoulder, solid of your chest against my cheek, and soft of your hoodie brushing my fingertips, till it feels like if I hold my breath—I could hear yours again. It only makes sense, then, that I live leaving space for all that endures of you. So I walk off-centre on a path wide enough for two. Sleep on the edge of a king-sized bed. Look to my sides from time to time, ostensibly at nothing at all.
All Things
Yet, in some mélange or murmuration, you’ll return to me over and over, memory and emotion stretched thin to detritus just to draw some tenuous connection. Going from that’s us out loud, to that’s you internally, to silent glances exchanged with someone else who knows of, but will never truly know. Look—I may never again lay eyes on you as you were, are, and will be; but I saw, am seeing, and will see you in every horse running wild, and sneaker left untied, and bear standing on its hind legs, and hair tie broken, and chocolate tin overpriced. For the rest of my life, you shall be in everything that you are not, such that even when I do not see you, I do.
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