In the light
Shadows are prisoners
And prisoners we are to our shadows
But if shadows could speak
I think they'll say

I am no prisoner
I am but a listener
I guide the light
and shape
the stars
I am detailed
craftily inked
I am what links
us all

In the darkness
Our shadows are free
And we are free from our shadows
But if shadows could speak
I think they'll say

I am beyond free
I am everywhere
omnipresent
and omniscient
I shade what most
aren't aware of
I am the protector
The keeper
of all secrets
I am defined
by none

But if shadows could speak
will anyone still feel lonesome?

she was a poet,
and he was her pen.
in him,
she always found words to write,
songs to sing,
thoughts to think.

he'd smile,
and kiss her softly,
and say,
"write me a poem."

and she would.
she'd put poe,
and whitman,
and shakespeare to shame,
and she'd write a poem that made his eyes water.

she'd compare him
to a rose with no thorns,
a book with no end,
a world with no poverty --
the things we all wish for,
but can never attain.

//

he asked her one day,
"what am i?"
and so she picked up her pen,
and began the usual:
you are the shining sun after a hurricane,
with rays that open the eyes of the blind.
but he stopped her after those two lines,
and said that this time,
he didn't want any metaphors,
or similes,
or analogies.
he wanted the truth.

and so on that night,
as he slept,
the poet picked up her pen,
and she wrote.

she wrote,
then thought better of it,
then started over again,
and this cycle continued well into the early hours of the morning,
until suddenly,
she wrote, frantic,
if i can't love you for what you really are,
have i ever really loved you at all?

this, too,
she thought better of,
condemning it to the trash.

the next morning the poet was gone,
her final work a mere two words:

i'm sorry.

(a.m.)