There was a time  
when putting voice to
silent declarations  
unspoken longing  
you would have uttered my name  

And it would have danced  
along your strings

The last time I saw you, I smiled, and feigned  
Simple friendship with my lips.  
I walked beside you down a narrow forest trail,  
Tall grass playing at my fingertips, until we emerged  
At a stream, where we sat and talked.  
While my heart beat your rhythm in my ears  
So loudly that I never stopped to wonder,  
If my rhythm was beating in yours.  

I don’t remember most of what was said.  
I can see your eyes, sparkling,  
Darting between mine and the water,  
Your half smile, playing at the corner of your mouth.  
I can see your lips moving, soft and full  
As they wrap themselves around syllables,  
But I can’t make out the words  
Just the thumping in my ears.  

When I leave, for the last time, we hug.  
I feel your soft warmth against me  
And wonder if you can feel yourself  
Thundering behind my ribs.  
I hold on, only a second too long,  
Despite the aching in my blood not to let go,  
Not to unwrap myself from you.  
Because part of me knew, this would be the last time.

Why did I come at all,  
When both of us knew that the stars were already  
Spinning us out of orbit.  
To prove to myself that you were just a friend,  
Or lie to myself that you weren't a lover.

I should have never come,  
Or never left -  
But all we say
is goodbye.

If our lives were captured in paintings,

each moment recorded in brush strokes

I would collect all of my

history into a warehouse,

set it on fire

and dance in the pyre's flames-

until everything

turned to ash.

I hope with everything within me;  
on the moon and shooting stars  
old stone wells and white horse waves  
that I am not forgotten  

I still come to the shore and  
wade into the waters,
feel the  current pull against my legs  
threatening to drag me out  
and abandon me in its expanse.  
I steel myself to the waves,  
to the unrelenting deep between us,  
and sing songs across the sea.
some for you
and some for me
and some, for us both,  
and I pray I am not forgotten  

there is a fear, a quiet anguish that  
looms in me like a shadow;  
that the sea has swallowed my voice,  
shipwrecked my song below the waves  
and I am made a stranger.  
an insignificant dot over your horizon.
like so many things
whose time has come
and gone.  

So I hope.
that life has not judged me too fairly,  
that somewhere I am happy,
hidden away inside you  
on a shore that I will never see
and I pray I am not forgotten