#poetsdaily

I can hear the wind howl in my ear, the crackling of the fire, the sound of my breathing, and my heart beating.

I stand still, the rain falling on my face, my blood running cold.

A speck of my past lightens my heart, a memory of a smile.

I remember his laugh and the way his body moved; The taste of his lips, the feeling of his skin.

In my head, he’s in the rain, a ghost, a memory of his hands in my hair.

He was so warm and heavy.

I lift my face, frozen, burning, and numb.

Staring into the sky and the clouds overhead, I cry.

You left me in silence, with thin, thin skin

and cracked lips that tasted like iron

and salt.

The sound of my car

escaping your street like a long-ago train,

still rings in my ears.

You say you regret what you’ve done to me,

but I’ve been broken in places you’ve never seen.

If I was already cracked, already estranged-

What is left of me?

The sun rises

at the same time,

but the shadows are all new.

I remember your fingers,

frozen in time, from the last moment I saw you.

I can still feel them on my skin,

cold, so cold, and that’s all they are now.

They’re not the same,

and you can’t warm me up from the inside out

again.

I could love you from the bone-deep

familiarity of childhood, from the startled

adventure of adolescence, I could love you

with all the joy and grief of womanhood.

Without turning away, without losing my place.

I could love you.

I’m the echo of a canyon

that’s been emptied of its rock, its rivers

without water. I’m nothing to the plants

that need me to live.

Some people arrive, like guests,

and stay longer than welcome.

Without a hint of grievance,

they leave, taking with them a part of you.

They leave behind their scent

in the places they’ve inhabited.

You realize you can’t live without them,

and their absence makes you want to die.

You taste like a lover I haven’t forgotten.

Your kiss sweet, yet not at all cloying.

The lingering traces of your lips left the faintest of scents,

only a whisper that fills my nose for a moment

before evaporating into nothing.

You’re taller than me, and my head rests in the crook of your neck

like a flower in a book,

and butterflies make my stomach their home.

I’m weightless for a moment, my feet supported by nothing at all.

I want to bury every moment with you in a diary,

but my fingers fumble as they try to keep up, and I’m left staring at an empty page.

I want to hold onto you and never let you go, but you’ve already flown far away.

You were once so close to me, and now, like so much else, you’re forever out of reach.

We’re sobs punctuated

by unspoken words

we whisper in our sleep.

We wake up in empty beds with

full-throated cries,

but that’s when

we’re whole.

We eat our hearts out with closed eyes

and can’t find our way back

to those moments when we were open-eyed and on the cliff

when we could’ve gone over,

could’ve taken the leap; but didn’t.

Time,

is both everything,

and nothing

all at once.

and

you can love someone

with everything in you

and the universe will still whisper

“not quite yet, darling”

Lifetime after

misguided lifetime,

I find myself

rediscovering the same path

I first paved

at seventeen.

Comfortable,

forgiving and

exhilarating.

Forever,

my most intimate place.

Sweet sister,

you’ve known me longer

than anyone.

Intertwined yet-

visibly divided,

we’d been on different planets

while under one roof.

I am constantly in a state of metamorphosis-

Transforming between me with you,

and me without.

But like the joints that ache within my hands,

you flare up at the most arbitrary moments.

Negligent to the damage

then pretending to banish me to oblivion,

as if I was ever easy to forget.

I try to forget you too,

until that ache in my hands extends to the rest of me

and becomes too painful to ignore.

I could play pretend

like my parents

and theirs before them,

and who would know any different?

I can fuel the facade they’ve illustrated

and paint the presence of our ancestors

each curse carefully intertwined with the next.

I could relive tradition-

and point the finger at my offspring

as a scapegoat for my misery

but when all you show is ignorance,

it will linger

long after you’ve gone

Suppressing emotions

has grown concerningly easy.

However,

when it comes to you,

I feel everything

all at once

You arrived like the sun

during the snowfall that left me frozen

Eyes bright, despite

the dullness of mine.

Your hands hold my cheeks,

melting the ice masking my face

to reveal rosy cheeks

that blush only for you

Sobs traveled through empty halls,

and I listened from my bed.

Unable to make out lost words

I Inched down the staircase,

until I could see the keeper of the cries.

In the distance, she collapsed.

Cradling her head in her hands

knees locked firmly beneath her,

she reached for him,

screaming

“please don’t leave me”.