Her voice lingers in the air, still and dead,
Stifling like oppressive August haze,
Stagnant musty pressure upon the head,
Like humid air that hasn’t moved for days.

Her voice lingers, her words stuck to my skin,
Putrid filth I can never wash away,
As unforgiving as a mortal sin,
I can’t be cleansed of what she had to say.

Her voice lingers, her “no” rings in my ears,
A branding iron of shame on display,
Her answer to my love will last for years,
Words I did not deserve to hear her say.

Her voice lingers, its echo like a pall,
Her voice lingers, “I don’t love you at all.”

Everything withers, e’en leaves of a tree,
Lush and full of life, verdant canopy.
The years take their toll, brittle death sets in,
The floor greets darkness the bare tree lets in.

The living have their time, then fade away,
Life lasts a moment, death years and a day.
We perish, and the preserved go rotten,
What we did, who we were, long forgotten.

Our long days belie our shortness of years,
The ground remains dry, unchanged by our tears.
Nothing yet lives that won’t see its last dawn,
There is no forever; all will be gone.

Plants return to earth, and us back to dust,
We live in denial; should we adjust?
Everything withers, e’en leaves of a tree.
I know this, yet, I am compelled to be.

My tears owe themselves to delight,
Flowing feeling I cannot fight,
Same tears that were sadness at night
Blur my eyes in elation’s light.

My tears owe to feelings so strong,
A heart that’s been toyed with too long,
Same tears for no love to belong
Celebrate that I was so wrong.

My tears owe to struggles with fate,
Lost loves to which none can relate,
Same tears cry alone while they wait
Flow from the joy of my soulmate.

My tears owe to emotions raw
Convinced I was creation’s flaw,
Same tears of shame as I withdraw
Thankful I embrace love with awe.

Days pass, hazy sunrise to misty night,
Yesterday and tomorrow like today,
Again, again, no difference in sight,
The fog that fell will never go away.

Nobody goes out when it is like this.
All routes barren in unpassable gray,
Again, again, another day to miss.
Who would drive blind, in darkness, anyway?

Look around, there is nothing but sameness.
Nothing changes except from slow decay.
Again, again, time falls to the aimless
Stoic and lost in a life thrown away.

Once hurt, just once, and the spirit has died,
Leaving behind an empty shell to stay,
Again, again, each new hour cast aside,
To die just a little more every day.

There between discontent and enchantment
Sits the self, seeking awe and amazement,
In response to perceived monotony
From the loss of its own autonomy.

There between morning’s hopeful open eyes
Sits the self, no different from last sunrise,
Welcoming heavy eyelids of midnight
To close one more day that seemed not quite right.

There between poems and the literal
Sits the self, with insight ephemeral,
Waging war with the real and imagined
Encounters with thoughts so undisciplined.

There between what is and what can become
Sits the self, embodied delirium,
Each unique but with no definition,
An unresolved eternal condition.

She sat beside herself and asked,
“Do you know where this feeling’s from?”
Her self stared back at her, unmasked,
And wondered who she had become.

Who but herself could ever know,
These things she thought that she once knew?
“I barely know you now, and so,
When was the last time you were you?”

The two of them, just her and her,
Each tried her best to understand.
Her self said, “Why are you so sure
You’re not exactly who you planned?”

“I wanted to be you instead,
Before you filled me with regret.”
Her wounded self smiled back and said,
“Perhaps you haven’t been you yet.”

I’m made of dust, dried bones and incomplete,
To be cursed for want of a stolen rib,
Barely alive with the faintest heartbeat,
A grown man like an orphan in his crib.

No room for a soul in my shriveled veins,
No life support for fragile loneliness,
To acquiesce in sadness given reins,
A flawed experiment in holiness.

To be alive gives no consolation,
My helpmate has absconded with my soul,
Turning my devotion to temptation
To fill a void when I should have been whole.

This lesson has been far too hard to learn!
To God-forsaken earth let me return!

She is in my breath of words so often
That just to speak is to feel kissed by her,
To have my discontented voice soften,
As the gentle kiss of a whisperer.

She so inhabits each letter I write,
That I dwell in them as they are spoken,
So each poem is her inhaled delight,
Said aloud is her kiss for the broken.

The poems from her spirit emanate,
My pen is the instrument of her heart,
Each word is a moment to osculate,
Breathing in her kiss as the words depart.

I send out poetry with emphasis
On the words she breathed deep into my lungs,
Planted on my lips with her passion’s kiss,
Words she inspires play between our tongues.

True love seeks a silent place,
A peace of unburdened voice,
Where lovers speak face to face
Without the past’s background noise.

Experience digs a pit
Crumbling love’s foundation,
For two lovers must commit
To a brand new creation.

Lessons learned in agony
That true love should leave behind
Are the cruelest irony,
And so hard to leave behind.