i go out seeking a great perhaps
immenser than the void i know.

but you have left
as all the others did --
only a few remained.
yellowing letters with words growing thinner and thinner barely
hanging, loosely against the mouth
of the fringe.

it is not enough that you have left.
it is not enough that this room
shouts enormously with its
darkness pressing against the venetian and i cannot see you anymore.
it is not enough that i hear your
footsteps mince away towards the seep of the door where your departure has overstayed its welcome.
it is not enough that there will be no more mornings to delight in - only nights where i scrounge for light only to find that even the things that glint have no use anymore.
it is not enough that we have screamed, yelled, bellowed our names at each other in love, now on hate. it is not enough that your once callow eyes are now lion-telling and mine, vulterine.

the arrival is just as swift
as the pulse of leaving and now
in the next room are so many women,
and it does not help that there
are also many rooms fraternized
altogether, filled with more
and more people.
the fuller the earth gets,
the sicker i become,
and the more stricken i become,
the more i remember that i have died wanting more deaths.

soon i will find your debris scattered throughout the streets
made for me to walk on.
a strand of hair, a pair of shoes,
a dress you never wore, the telephone like a petrified train
in the station of my hollow being,
and that it would ring,
i know it too well,
but there will be a strange voice
at the other end that will
pierce me back to remembering
how you sound and i will take
it, i will take it for
for the indictment nears its brutal straightforwardness:
it will never be you waving
at the other end of the street
together with the ugly palms.
it will never be you
in the dress, it will never
be you on the passenger seat
peering out into the world with
eyes beating the darkness of the freeway with the many exploding lights of who you are
and what you've given me with
what was left of you,
and what i've given you
amid this thing of being me.

it is never enough.
it is never enough that
i know this, and it is never enough that unknowing you is longer
   than how we have known each
    other when our voices are the
    only once that dwelt within
      ourselves.