To Those I've Lost Along the Way

If I’m being

Completely honest

The days sometimes feel like years

Since I’ve seen your

Smile, the kind that lit up the room

And saved me from the darkness

Wound tight ‘round my heart

Like stiff, bloodied bandages

From a war never resolved.

Sometimes

When the sunlight streams

Through my dusty blinds

While the heat releases a

Shuddering exhale

The room feels like

A forgotten tomb

And I am the wailing ghost

Knocking on my door –

And who can hear me

But my knocking heart?

But if I’m being

Completely honest

You should know that

I can blink and

Find myself in Paris

Among the scarves and berets

On darting, frenzied bodies

And I will have

Nicotine on my tongue

And a dark coffee in hand

With soft-spoken sounds of

Electric words

Ringing in my ears.

But when I

-blink-

I’m in Barcelona

Where the language lifts you up

And dances around you

In a thick cloud of intoxicating beauty

While you’re

Tangled up in words

Until I

-blink-

And, there I am,

Spread-eagle

At the top of the Empire State –

At the top of the world,

On the land we once conquered

In the name of a deity

That once conquered us.

And then I

-blink-

And I am in

California,

In a city far away,

Where rows of brightly colored houses

Remind me of you

Because houses can be home

And you are always where my heart is.

And the door will have flowers

Tucked into the windowsill

And there will always be a candle

Burning,

Pining

For you.

And sometimes I wish

I never learned to

-blink-

At all

Because the only place I ever wanted to be

Is next to you.

And I

-blink-

And there you are

In your multitude of colors

And clothes and attitudes,

With your disheveled hair and

Hatred of mornings and your

Smeared eyeliner from

That time I saw you cry

When I wasn’t supposed to,

When I didn’t think about the future

And I didn’t fear the present,

But I was still running from the past

As I filled the holes in my shoes

With weary feet,

And the holes in my heart

With you.

I want to

-blink-

And open up to you

For the first or

Second time

So you can pour

Into me

And fill the empty parts

Left so long to neglect

But instead

I will

-blink-

And I will find myself in Spain

And I will get drunk on

Wine and words

And find myself in verse

And I will fill myself

With heady fumes

And a nightly muse

And a shorter fuse …

Anything at

The thought of you.

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To Those I've Lost Along the Way - Hello Poetry