your soul is hidden
         in the folds of sanity
         beneath my fevered skin.

    it dances in languid motion
    among bruised walls
    & punctured veins,


endlessly waiting


              for an impossible cure.

falling shoelace gets knotted and strung
between the fingers of strangers,


likewise your soul.


it floats feverishly among
faded skies
and loses its anchor.


if the night isn't so unforgiving,
    *i might come out and say hello.

over the years,
i've collected images
of various escapades
all thrown away
when they thought
no one was looking.

i've listened to cries
hiding beneath their
ringing laughters
and tucked those tears
away in clear bottles
for safekeeping.

i've helped mend
battered hearts
& fractured souls,
then whispered comforts
about dreams & hopes.


i have done all those and more.


and now,

i want to know
if a song can rise from
the ashes of a broken life.

i thought you will
last forever.
in the same way
i thought poetry only
rhymes.

but it doesn't,
and so are you.


it was a long time ago.
too long to remember now
but i do,
anyway.


like fireflies on a  summer's eve,
you illumined every path
leading to this final solitude.


briefly but brightly.


the show was beautiful while it lasted;
i'm honest enough to admit that.

but like everything you
ever taught me:
illusion has a way of obscuring reality.

it was a little late
when i became aware
of your cryptic absence.

for a while,
i thought you would come back.


no, i believed you would.


over the years, though,
that faith slowly dampened.

until, one day, it completely disappeared.


like you.


i wonder,
from that first moment,

were you ever there at all?