This is where we first met, on a blank page slowly filled with ink.
I wrote my words with you on my mind
and you read them with a peculiar style and grace,
as if reading were some soporific artform,
elbow on table, hand on temple, hunched forward,
leaning towards the paper as if the words
somehow became smaller the more you concentrated.
The first time I watched you read, you looked like a painting,
my hand slowly drawing brushstrokes in the air,
swiping your hair, blotting your cheeks, unfolding your eyes.

This is where we last met, an inked sheet washed clean with holy water.
Like shaking a Polaroid, you slowly appeared
but your image faded until just the outline remained.
I was only ever interested in what lay within that line,
the shape of your heart, the light in your eyes,
the soft glint of dew on your eyelashes when you were in pain.
A prophet came to me and told me he could resurrect you
but I saw there was no ink left in his pen,
his pencil blunt and his image of you was blurry,
seeing you through the cataracts of someone else’s memories.

This is not the time in history to be raising the dead,
they belong where they belong because that’s where they need to be.
My words would mean nothing if you were here,
reading in that manner I wrote about so much.
This is the table where I write your name out of nothing.
This is where we first met, a blank page slowly filled with ink.