I wish the words would come
That I could “ring them out like the rain”
Even this one though
Doesn’t end for me

Degraded to online prompts
With the delusional last-hope
That these words
Will bring mine some solace

Three prompts shallow
The charmed one stares bashfully back at me
“Write about something or someone you lost”

I used to write about sunshine
Tattooed into your wrist

My eyes incapable of reading past;
The other prompts fall backward
Blank and dull--nothing changed

The page blurred
I know that those are the only words I feel
Even these words though
And the feelings they evoke
Are empty

Nothing holds anything
No laughter in your throat
I see your pictures
I want to dig it out
From the cave of your mouth
Frantic; I need to find your smile
The words spoken only to me
I miss you

My spirit hinges between yesterday and tomorrow
The present isolated—anything but lived
With that thought
You feel even more wasted

‘Wasted’
Prompts the image:
Me slapping myself
Popping the unspoken word from out of my mouth
Wasted
Black letters laying on the floor
in a white wall room
Staring back at me

Erase this stanza
Grow back my charisma
Where did I lose my empathy
Replaced with sick sympathy
How could I say this about you

Worse even,
Is my silence
After hearing from cold lips “what a shame”
The lose breath hangs
The words replaced with brief and noncommittal reflection
Followed by the shake of a faceless head
Before turning back to its newspaper

The word Shame
Stabs slowly
Only because you did make all of your choices
You did leave us

Still, I keep my eyes from casting to the ground
I am not left someplace dingy
There is no soot covering where my cheeks should be rosey
You are not shame

The words do not come
They sit muddied and sopping
A rag dismissed to the few-days-grayed sidewalk
Rain falls and attempts to take in space where there is none
Even a sponge becomes too full
I miss you