When we said
Goodbye
The more I knew
I just can't
Let you go.

Some girls know all of each others poetry off by heart.
They find assonance in their laughter.
Their linked hands echo in sybilance.
I sometimes sing as if I am one of them
but what if I can't hum on key?
What if my elegies are the ones nobody reads?
Words, words, words. They rush over me and out of me
to a dead audience.
There is no innocent brush of fingers
or sweet laughter, only the perverse desire
to write something more than myself
and wait for an empty orchestra of applause to greet me.
Perhaps if I write as I am
then I will become who I am not.
Perhaps I will become one of the poets,
harmonising in time with the rest of you.

She left her cave,
heart full of bones,
and unzipped. Her dress fell
to the ground. She stood, exposed,
layers unravelling in the sunlight.
Toes curled into fresh soil,
the smell of rain. Her body exploded
with bright, vivid colour.
******* bared to the whispering wind,
a bead of sweat found itself trickling
down the centre of her back.
Her arms stretched upwards as she
rejoiced the morning air,
laughing to the sky.
She stood firm.
Birds came home then left again.
Days changed to night then back again.
Winter came.
When the ice began to thaw, it started
at her feet.
She willed it to.
You can hear her peace
in the thrum of the ocean.
Her skin became the enticing
reeds, swaying to the beat
of the wind's drum.
You can feel her sorrow
in the cries of lonely wolves.
Her limbs became the stretched shape
of trees, making the horizon jagged
and green.
You can sense her anger
in the crack of lightning.
Her body became the earth, each
person born as one of her children.
You can see her, even now,
glowing with the sun and singing
to you in the morning air,
standing firm.

Today
everything
is standing
still
the sun
the sky
you on the other side
and I
still waiting
for you
still staying
for you
proving
you
don't have
to feel
the same.

My heart is broken and it will remain the same
I will never recover through all the wind and rain
Darker times are here forever till my last breath
The tears I cry will bleed until my own death
The place called home is like a graveyard
It will always be your home, it tears me apart
Everywhere and everything is a part of us as two
I close my eyes and empty mind, but I still see you
You never leave me I want the pain to stay forever
It would never feel right anyhow now we're not together
Do not think you were not loved, just see the tears I cry
You know when you're in heaven, I will mourn for you till I die

David Swinden © 29/4/2017