If I lost you
I'd lose nothing

You're nowhere

Nothing
but a haunting

a flutter of chemicals in my brain
a space in my head when I realise you're already gone

Losing you...

I was a shipwreck for you
Run aground
Tattered sails hoisted high

Looking at the fair clear breeze
You said lift the anchor
Mistaking a hollow creak for a laugh

And when the woodworm finally took the mast
you cried in outrage

How dare you not sail for me
Not realising
The dry rot eroding your footing on deck

this is one of those poems
(I'm sure) you've read them before

It's about you and him
and how you were with me

and even though you're happy
and it does me good to see the pain leaving your eyes

It's about how worthless at times you made me feel (and for all the love i have for you)
it's starting to feel like a relief to be free

Yeah this is one of THOSE
poems
and I am sorry if you come across it

this is hardly a poem
(and probably shouldn't be)

But with all of this
I can't help wondering
What is wrong with me
(And the next line should be: that I put up with it so long, but is in fact still:)
That it wasn't me

If I lost you
I'd lose nothing

You're nowhere
Nothing
but a haunting
a flutter of chemicals in my brain
a space in my head when I realise you're already gone
Losing you...

but where before this jagged object, this cutting thing rending my soft parts,
has flowered now into a gentle form
floating so ephemeral
pulsing a soft joy
a gentle sadness

I can almost hold it now and let you go

Old Herne aromping in the wilds
Perchance exceeds his bound
And in a garden verdant
His hoof'ed feet were found

The careful rows of hellebore
The finely tilled red earth
The bursting bulbs of amaryllis
Enjoying their rebirth

All seemed queer to Herne the Hart
With moss and ivy twined
His ancient heart and wild blue eyes
No sense in this can find

And I realise now
There's no place for this wildness of mine
In your cultivated calm

They say there was a river feeding North Africa
the Nile’s dark twin
imagining the rolling grasslands of the Sahara
and the life therein
but all that’s left of the cloud breaks and the gentle herds
is a shadow
seen from a satellite, dark lines in the golden sand
not seen below
and I remember reaching for you