It started with Ovid
And really, it made me turn to stone
Made something long gone throng inside me
With just the way you talked and showed backbone
Yes, it started with Ovid

Inbetween there were the seas
The personal space we flirted in and grinned in
All the while filling up the spaces between my fingers
My name slipping off your lips like it was cherished
And all the while, there were the seas

Then came the Illiad
You were letting students give apples to the prettiest
But I think you didn't see it'd have been you
In fact, you were soon becoming the wittiest
And it slowly invigorated me but I was shy
So we just discussed the Illiad

Now is the time for Virgil
A time of white teeth in wide smiles about stories
A moment of touches of laughs of jokes
And suddenly a sign of another and love well-spent
And so with Virgil,
              With Virgil we shall die.

The strangest and most irascible part
Of breaking up with someone

Is that the amount of pain it brings
Is something you feel you can only survive
While being in their arms.

I wish I'd loved you fleetingly
                            Like a spare thought
But I loved you like a writer
                                                  like a poet
And that used to be a blessing
But now it just makes me cursed.

It is her that awaits you at home
Curls her arms around you sweetly
Embraces you daily in plain love
That lightens your path like a muse

Me?
I'm your Nessie to play with as you will
Or a monster of my own creation
Only used to talk to or to sometimes vent
An alchemist's joke gone wrong
Left like a fear in the dark at the day's end

And You?
When you get home she laughs about me
as she slowly worships your warm lips with vigor
So you sense the love slipping between your bodies
Pronounce the words to her I now cannot say to you.

So  now I'm left on my own to
Fill the spaces between my fingers
Fill up the space between my toes
With the loneliness you gave me
                                  Until all I am
                                            all I will be
                                                               is alone.

Cowering under the sheets
                  I beg of you
Stay, my lovely Illusion
Come back, my Fata Morgana

Do not let me wander off
  into that wild, dark night
Keep me from meeting those terrors
  those taunting dreams

Shivering from bones to blanket
                 I reach out to you
Try to grasp your stream of consciousness
Caress the ethereal of your mind

I scream.

Keep me locked up in you
Have me as an aside of cruel reality
Take what I offer and improve it
See me partially,
                           see me whole!

Moments ago, I was alive
Ran after my pray in stride
Chased my dreams every day
Sharpened my claws on ideas
Cut my teeth on practical business

But after that died down
I sat and stared and dreamt
When my heart gave out
I was pacing life's cage in wonder.

Moments ago, I was alive
Now
I'm left to ponder.

En ik vrees elke dag die nog komt zonder je,
Omdat ik je nu al zo erg mis.

Distancing yourself from me
Or saving me from you
Some days I wonder which it is you do

Swimming away from me
Or struggling with the tide
Most days I wish I had a guide

A map to show me your routes
The cavities of your existence
The holes in your feverous heart

Just so I could go,
                           dash in;
                                take the hurt.

Sometimes I wish I had a guide,
A "how-to" in twelve steps and all
But then I remember:
                                        You are other
You are not me, not at all.

Some moments, though, I still want that map
I really do sometimes, just so I could recall
But you wouldn't want me to have it, would you?
You wouldn't want me to help you at all.

I would say it was all friendly
That your arms never touched mine
That I stood there heaving still
That I never put my head on you
I would say that, I would

But it would be like saying the sun died.

I would say it lasted a short time
That I never leaned back against you
That I felt cold inside every second
That I felt very normal after

I would say that, I would.

But I can't.

Sometimes when I shut it out
When I need the storm to subside
When I enforce the quiet around me
It is all I see.

The sound of dreams,
Of hopes left in the corners
The feel of raw skin on the walls
Rough edges on the doorstep
The sound of feet dragged through dust
The tingle of ritual and tradition.

Sometimes when I stop to think
When I close the gates to the sea
When I lock up the wind
When I push and bend the coral
It is all I can feel.

The taste of fear
Of angst turned into ashes in my mouth
The smell of laughter on your tongue
The sweet aftertaste of love at night,
The sourness of happiness  blanketing it all

Sometimes when I shut it out,
Life is all I hear.

Odd how a state of stress becomes permanent
It feels like it is buried
         in a glacier
                as is our lost time
And while spring thaws away at nature
we stay frozen in our homes