Of all our modern sorrows
Few compare to the sadness of happening  
   upon a space
Once beautiful in its solitude
Now sullied by man and his ever-spreading  
   civilization

Meet me where the sidewalk ends and the highway begins
Somewhere between the endless showers of spring and the changing shades of autumn
A place I once knew like the back of my hand
resting under yours
Where we could have sat in silence for all of eternity
If time had slowed down or stood still
But seasons shifted

Tonight
Wrapped in the dying light of the setting sun, I close my eyes
And fall off the face of the earth and back
Into your arms

The cars crawl by, their headlights projecting shadows that slip across the ceiling. I lie motionless below, following them with tired eyes until they fade. A house filled now with sleeping souls, I savor the silence. I think of you in your empty house and your unmade bed and the space you left in mine. You'll never know how often you occupy my mind.

Cold-cracked skin and brittle bones
A long walk alone, followed only by shadow
Snow snakes across pavement, piles up
Weight is shifted, feet carefully lifted
The sky now violet with the dying of twilight

Failed attempts and familiar faces
I only ever come back as myself
I've been left out in the rain, left for dead
I've been wearing out my skin instead of in
I've been sleeping on concrete and an empty stomach
I mostly sleep alone now

The night sky is scarred with tattered strands of clouds
Eternal darkness interrupted only by muted moonlight
The wind whispers of winter, an inevitable return
To the beginning, the end

The way the late afternoon light bleeds into the room
through the window
spilling onto the furniture, the thread-bare floor

The shadows of passers by slip in
the space between the door and the ground
their movement swift, silent

The heaviness of limbs and emptiness of head
in sickness and in lack of sleep
the shifting of weight, season