I closed and locked the bureau
Shut.
I said it was finished
But, honestly, I never meant a word
The prose written on a misty window
Requiring heated breath to maintain presence
Time would only fade it all away
In the moments passed since then
I have stared mournfully at the blessed white skin
That wraps my wrists like swaddling
A surgical blade in steady hand
Contemplating cutting out that playful creature
Who keeps me dancing between here and there
Trouble, I find, as he dwells not in this soft flesh
But deep within my off beat heart

I left a love letter tucked between piano keys
And still find pennies under the sofa
Blown kisses tucked in breast pockets
So as not to float unto another’s lips
I left a note beneath your pillow
So your head might rest on its soft caress
Sometimes when you’d kiss me to insane
I’d open my eyes to the moon-struck presence
Of true content in your ghost face
I never knew such beauty
Perhaps I made you up inside my head
I often wonder, should I blink
Would I find myself alone in bed
I look into the mirror to remind myself I’m there
Slowly, my reflection shakes its head in despair

We met in the most deceitful of places
Something opaque drew me to your side
I toppled then from the trapeze
And fell into your dilated eyes
I must steal my soul back from you
For the rustiness of my words appals me
Oh God, love is the most lonely emotion
They will laugh in mockery at my aching
For time will heal the deepest wounds
But I, I stress, am a terminal patient
And they, citizens of the world,
The great grave fillers
Do not believe in such a sickly diagnosis
For there is bliss in ignorance
My dying is an art
As though closing the door is the end of it all

I wear your clothes around an empty house
My feet take me to the mirror to stare
Into dead eyes and back
To bed
Where I may pretend
That the journey has not been marked
By the stroke I cut into the life line of my stretched palm
In an attempt to whisper to the Gods
I wander busy streets glazed over
Conscious that our feet once went together
Along these very bricks to memory lane
My shadow sinks to the dust of the ocean floor
Like a child holding its breath
It is clear
It was not us that could not go on,
But me.