"you look like someone died,"
i wrote you eulogies every day until i was romanced by passing,
the melancholy verse of song in my head
making up choruses of I miss yous,
streaks of saltwater on my eyes, stinging the wounds you left behind
the flowers you gave me in paris still breathing,
and the taste of our romance still residing on my tongue
(swallow, swallow, be rid)
you left so soon, so and too
sudden
you were gone before the moments were.
the drifting of a breeze, the movement of a wave,
my time with you was always accompanied by the
ticking of your father's watch, always too loud for it's shell
we were running out of tick-tocks
my time with you was chaperoned by dust from the sand in an hourglass.
an expiration date waiting to happen.
a shoebox filled with memories of you and i
in happier moments so far away i thought it had to be a previous life,
filled with useless things.
- movie stubs so faded you can no longer make out the print
- a coaster from the mexican restaurant on our first date
- a water bottle you once drank out of
- a birthday card i bought you that i was saving for next year
you always said i had a horrible habit of hoarding,
you laughed at how i was always a touch too emotional and a cusp too sentimental.
but still, i grasp at the things that connected me to you,
a sick need of proof - cold, hard evidence
(how could someone made up of matter, of skin and of bones, of mind and of heart, dissolve into nothingness?)
an attestation that you were real. living and breathing.
that i did not make you up.
(though maybe, sometimes, i wish i had,
then you wouldn't have to go,
my dear)
so soon, so and too
sudden, my love
that i am left to implore the whys, the hows
- why wasn't i good enough
- how could i have done better
- why
- how
these questions take from in the ugliest of demons, crawling
under my skin and
residing in the corner of my heart.
the corner you used to keep your shoes in.
"yes... someone has died."
i wrote you eulogies every day until i was romanced by passing,
the melancholy verse of song in my head
making up choruses of I miss yous,
streaks of saltwater on my eyes, stinging the wounds you left behind
the flowers you gave me in paris still breathing,
and the taste of our romance still residing on my tongue
(swallow, swallow, be rid)
you left so soon, so and too
sudden
you were gone before the moments were.
the drifting of a breeze, the movement of a wave,
my time with you was always accompanied by the
ticking of your father's watch, always too loud for it's shell
we were running out of tick-tocks
my time with you was chaperoned by dust from the sand in an hourglass.
an expiration date waiting to happen.
a shoebox filled with memories of you and i
in happier moments so far away i thought it had to be a previous life,
filled with useless things.
- movie stubs so faded you can no longer make out the print
- a coaster from the mexican restaurant on our first date
- a water bottle you once drank out of
- a birthday card i bought you that i was saving for next year
you always said i had a horrible habit of hoarding,
you laughed at how i was always a touch too emotional and a cusp too sentimental.
but still, i grasp at the things that connected me to you,
a sick need of proof - cold, hard evidence
(how could someone made up of matter, of skin and of bones, of mind and of heart, dissolve into nothingness?)
an attestation that you were real. living and breathing.
that i did not make you up.
(though maybe, sometimes, i wish i had,
then you wouldn't have to go,
my dear)
so soon, so and too
sudden, my love
that i am left to implore the whys, the hows
- why wasn't i good enough
- how could i have done better
- why
- how
these questions take from in the ugliest of demons, crawling
under my skin and
residing in the corner of my heart.
the corner you used to keep your shoes in.
"yes... someone has died."
