Cards

Piling up. Time.

Hours, minutes, seconds split into fifths.

The days folding neatly into each other.

The ragged edges only appear at night, when I go to bed and your voice does not track softly behind me to say goodnight.

The leaves are turning, like the world. Without you. Me with you.

Standing at the top of hills, at top of stairs, on balconies, I wonder.

Wonder if you will catch me if I willingly fall.

Will you ghostly arms cradle my soul, as I my body loses the fight against the hard surface?

Or will I wake, even more broken, dragging my ruined body like a dog left to side by the side of an abandoned road?

Bits and pieces of the flotsam of the universe after all; walking, talking, living, dying.

How does the my world function without you?

But then again, why would it not?

Four-fold

The Teacher spoke and you appeared. For me.

Like skin attached to muscles, connected by sinew and enlivened by nerves, you were to me. And I to you.

For it is so plain.

Let the wise among us hear.  See these truths.

*

Feed me. I hungered and you gave me food for my body and fed my heart.

Without you I am wasting away, one molecule at a time.

Slipping back to the Great Darkness where I slumbered before I was sang into the Light.

You were in the Darkness, so I was not in fear. Only unaware yet always safe.

*

Quench my thirst. I was parched, fevered and you gave me water. Your tears of concern refreshed my soul, for I knew you would split your last drop of water in half so that neither of us would have to suffer discomfort.

Yet there is no one like you, no one to hear my cries in the night and rush to me. No one to put the cool rim of the glass to my lips.

A cool loving hand to my burning brow.

*

Shelter me. I was wandering and weary, and you opened the door, lit the room. Wrapped a warm blanket around me, showered me with words and knocked the ice of fear off my mind.

Who will make sure I have a warm place to sleep? Only you would give up your bed, allowing me to take the place where your body heated the sheets.

You would watch over me until I was firmly encased in a restful, quiet sleep.

*

Visit me. When I was in a prison of confusion, you faithfully visited me. Day after day until the bars bent and the door swung open.

I have no visitors now. Chained in a dank corner, watching listlessly as the light throws the pattern of day, noon, night on the cold floor.

I wait for your footfalls but I know that I will not hear yours or any other.

No matter, for only you held the key to the doors of this cell.

*

Harmony

This morning, I stood mute and frozen, all around me, mouths opened and poured forth the hymn. The one from your final service.

My eyes were rooted to one spot, slowly filling with frozen water that could not fall.

Inhaling, I smelled the flowers that sat on my mantel, withering slowly, returning to the Earth, as you did. As we all will.

In that room, someone took comfort from those words that only stab me in the base of my brain. Over and over, with each refrain, the sharp blade lifts out and then go right back in.  The hole is no wider or deeper-it hurts just the same.

I carry your voice in my heart, and the sounds of the laughter of those who left us. Until the us become a solitary I.

I drag the songs of the dead behind me.

Follow the trail I leave.

It leads to my grave.

hooked

Not well. I am not.

A broken lamp leaking oil. A bulb with only one filament.

I cannot cast light.

I appear as if all is on order.

Pass your hand over me and feel the lack of heat. Notice that I cannot cast your shadow.

***

Words offer no solace. Only dreams of a true past that cannot be maintained.

I wonder if these shiny little beauties, mute but screaming to my ears, can calibrate me, set my balance right.

Will it be enough? Or will I need more, so much more, to refute myself in the night?

Strong hands,  firm lips. warm sweet breath, veins standing out, lean sinew. Not enough, does not reach into me, does not reset my circuitry.

Only the lulling siren of those mute beauties that click in the palm of my hand, boat and winding stream at the same time, can reattach the parts of me and allow me to stay sane.

Stills the roaring of the grief that holds me tight in sharp wicked jaws.

***

I dreamed that a man came, attired so very fine and asked me why wasn’t I dressed to go. Did I miss his call, he asked so gently.

Stepping away from him, I stood where you bed once was, where you used to drop in sleep and screamed that I loved you. Shouted your name once, then once more.

Upon jolting awake, the lack of you settled back upon my chest. But my dry heart only sighed, releasing a puff of dust.

I do not cry in wet. I leak out dry.

Others offer my things, try to distract me, soothe me.

But I am an addict, a true junkie, only for you.

Because of every and all things, I loved.

You.

Wither

The sunflowers I bought in your memory are fading.

In the vase, on the table, they are turning that dark red of decay.

They smell like love rotting slowly.