the train tracks are empty. I don't know how often one comes. I'd like to say that I've been holding myself together with twine and bits of soil and concrete. I'm barefoot and I've found an array of glass bottles littered over the edges of the track.
All I need is a little warmth which is odd considering it's in the middle of summer and the scorching rays are burning my skin. Everything else seems illegible compared to your eyes and nothing looks real anymore.
I want you to know that when a train comes barreling through these tracks, I will face it with as much faith as I can bear.
I once promised you that I would try and I am trying but I can't cough out the words lodged in my throat because, I think, I've kept them there for too long now. I did promise you that I would try but does it really matter all that much now?
I can hear the train coming - this looks like a nice spot to settle.
I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to do this on my own. I'm sorry that I'm not strong enough to look past the lost tenderness that used to grace your eyes.
It's ridiculous really, because I haven't met you yet and there's still an ache in my chestfrom when you left.
I don't know how to do this without you. I don't know how to use the memories of your lack of existence to help myself move from this spot.
I can see the lights approaching.
Please understand. Please understand that I had to do this. Please understand that I had to do this for the sake of my sanity and I can't imagine moving away from these train tracks just to wake up tomorrow to remember that I do not know what it feels like to have loved and be loved by the ghost of you.
Please, I beg of you, forgive me for my past transgressions and forgive me for not being able to quell the pain of never knowing you.
I can hear it now. I can hear the pistons and the rumble of the tracks.
I'll take my leave.
And maybe, if I'm lucky, you'll never realize I was here in the first place.

I never said goodbye.
Instead I let you fall,
further and further
until you left the hope
that was my
peripheral vision.

I could not have you.
I could not keep you.
I could not keep the
simple pleasures
that are met alongside the
empty-handed.
I was forced to leave without
a whisper in your ear
to say that
you are beautiful.

And if I had said it
what would we be?
What would you have done
had you known?

But I cannot wonder
on answers I lack.
Questions that will remain
static
but only in my past.

Do not forget me.
Do not forget the things
I never said.
The reason for the
smiles
I didn't show.

We are the past:
The distant memories,
hazy slur of another time.
Soon your face will
lose its features
somewhere in my mind,
the sound of your voice
will be
silenced.

But remember my name.
Hold on,
keep it in a drawer
by your bed,
check to see if it is still there
every night before the
sleep of dreams
void of my face and the way
we danced.

Pray,
do not forget.