fernweh is a german word that means to be a homesick for a place you've never been, so i wonder what you call missing someone who was never yours.

don't say you found someone new
someone who understands you
i always did the best i could

it was an epic tale
but it was not a love story
and you weren't okay with that.
we were not a love story
but i thought our tale was still worth telling
apparently you didn't.

It's been a while since this,
feeling,
came to visit.       This,
all too familiar...
crawl-out-of-my-skin,
feeling.       This,
boulder-in-my-throat,
choking-not-breathing,
feeling.       This,
isolate-and-hide,
I've-been-compromised,
feeling.       This,
     𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴...
     that if you go now,
     my heart might stop beating.

▪︎ mica light ▪︎

Today,
This tree was the very picture
Of a pair of birds
Who had a fight after mating.

You will never understand
The eagerness of this tree
In making every morning a new one
Or daily showing me a new movie,
However I try to describe it
One day
Leaves, that cry
“don’t go” “don’t leave”
To the wind
That passes by

Another day
Of shooing cats feasting in the shade,
On fish bone, from someone’s leftover meal,
After dribbling pigeon-droppings from a branch,

Another day
The tear-filled eyes
Of its own branch
That cries
And supplicates the sun
To heal its wound

Another day
Of its own sister branches
Or, in human parlance, wooden chairs
That have become prostitutes;
On which strange people sit casually.

One day
The Bihari
Who is scared stiff of his lord,
And who runs every time a wind blows
To sweep away the dried leaves
Which the wind has killed,
Having made violent love to them.

On yet another day,
The fruits that laugh their heads off
Along with the little blossoms that laughed once |
At the silver-blue sky

On still another day
The tap root
That suddenly burst into tears
Gazing at the dusk
That draped golden strands on boughs and twigs

On yet another day,
The aged middle-portion of the tree
That unveiled the hitherto unexposed
Moss-green nursling
And prayed that it be named
Another day before this,
Had made me sad
By asking
“Are you wont to see
the other tree-friends
Throughout the countryside ?”

Had made me heartsore
By asking me
“Would you forget me?”

Once, have asked
Whether I would point out
The mother-bird
Who sowed the seed after she ate the fruit
I have made myself broken-hearted  |
wondering
Where or how mother was.

At the moment
When the mind gets shaken up
And becomes even more fragile,
In the memory of
Some trees
That have helped some lives thrive,
Have given shade,
Given oxygen,
Crucified,

O tree,
I am hugging you,
Giving you
A frozen, but still very passionate kiss
With the Alloyed numbness of death and life :
A tree-kiss

I feel you inside me
though you are not with me
No one can find you
but I can see you next to me!

You aren't far away from me
You are in my heartsore
You aren't behind my eyes
but always in my tears!

I can't forget you; it's difficult for me
I still love you as I did before.
I'm not asking you to come back to me
but you could love me some more!

You still come in my dreams
and make me smile
I still read your love poems
and follow your style.

Your moon shines in my sky
It will never depart away.
You'll remember me when I die
Just forgive me that day!

Once many summers ago my inner heart began to show
as we sat upon the shore of many, many years before
What I found was sweet and true, but what he found was nothing new.
Just as summer fades for the cold of winter crawling through the door
so too did the love of my l’amour
When we left it on the shore of many, many years before.

His eyes reminded me of a doe, but oh, I wish that I had known
What exactly was in store or that it would affect me to the bone
For as our love died, so too now must the memories of long before
The memories which once sweet change to tormentor
of this friend who once had more
in a summer many, many years before.

Without a doubt there came September,
and at once, I do remember, that our love became an ember
fading into nothing more.
But what I did not realize then, was that the one I did adore
saw me, a friend, and nothing more once we left that lovely shore
so many, many years before.

Sweet words and sweeter promises were made and said
And the thought still fills me with dread
that I allowed myself to fall so deeply for
A boy who could not see me as anything more
than the friends we became upon that shore
of many, many years before.

As we drifted farther apart
I tried to calm the anxieties of my heart
and keep them there forever more.
“I’ll never let him know,” I thought “that he was, in fact, my first l’amour.
Friendship was born upon that shore
only this and nothing more.” I told myself, my heart sore.

Then one day, one dreadful day, he met her
and fell so fast he was a blur.
While once our conversations made my mood soar
they quickly became a terrible chore
and often made the tears pour
to hear of his love for her.

Every story of every date became a story I would hate
And the story of ‘first kiss’ came with a tremendous weight
but the role of best friend was one I was willing to play forevermore
Even though I knew there wasn’t a chance to be anything more
Just to be close to the boy of many, many summers before.

I never let him know how much it hurt to let him go
Because for him, it was nothing more than a summer fling, even so
My friends slowly began to abhor
The boy who broke my heart for sure
once we left the pebbled-shore
of many, many years before.

And slowly they convinced me it would be best to end it once and for all
and so our conversations were rare, if there were any at all.
But every so often I saw in a passing stranger’s eyes once more
the sparkle that I remembered and longed for
but little would these strangers know that despite my flirtations I was heartsore
for the boy of many, many years before.

And just as all young loves do
His true love left him, and I knew
that again would come the false love of before
a shadow of the summer of years before
And so I kept myself away, still a little bit unsure
If he ever felt what I felt that summer on the seashore.

The boy was beautiful as can be
as we walked by the sea
but he never knew and never will, I swore.
Because he never could have just one amour
You see, there wasn’t only me that summer by the sea--
That summer of many, many years before.

So slowly, slowly both of them died
the love and friendship both, all because I lied,
mainly to myself, and said I could ignore
the feelings and memories of long before.
The memories I had of a summer many, many years before.

I am sorry about the letters I wrote you
in red ink, the swells and valleys
of your body that I never
learned to love.
I am sorry for making you a war zone,
for the carnage and the crime,
the cruel topography of the boot prints I
left inside of your skull.

Especially those. You see, I was taught how to
choke the things I love
with fists stained blue and bleeding,
to shake till they are limp as a rag doll
and cry over their prone form,
but never how to touch the planes of your face
without leaving frost on your wings,
ice behind the shutters of your eyes.

I’m sorry for all the time you spent
tending the garden of your sorrow,
I’m sorry that your tears
didn’t help the flowers bloom. I’m sorry that
the bathroom mirror knows you best
wild-eyed at 2 am, asking it ragged and heartsore
who will love me now. who could
love me.

I’m sorry that when I say I’m trying to be better
it sounds like an apology for not being good enough.
I’m sorry that there are days when your poems
read like grocery lists of all the lies
I told you when you cried.  

Forgive me.
I’m sorry we never learned how to
fall into and not through,
sorry the slopes of the letters in the words
we speak aren’t the bridges we mean
them as.

I’m sorry I buried you under the couch
in that therapist’s office. your tears were
saltwater I couldn’t allow myself to drink.
I lived on a desert island
and could not permit myself the
pleasure of a mirage.

I’m sorry that I never believed you could be
someone I could understand.

I’m sorry that you’ve spent so much
time looking for someone to
love you.
I’m sorry it couldn’t be me.

john donne, was wrong ...

you know,
there are times...
when a man, is an island,
set alone far out to sea.

when,
he is bereft.
just a void, of sadness,
a gape, of hulking misery,
a chasm, of blankness,
in diminished and weary desolation.

with,
nothingness,
barren nakedness,
abject defeated melancholy,
as mountain range and peaks.

with,
indifference,
listless malaise,  
the emptiness of depression, fatigue and lethargy,
as his meagre crops to eat.

with,
despondency,
distress, grief, affliction, abject and ineffable, sadness
as, the rivers that run through.

with,
tribulation,
torment,
desperate lamentations,
now, covering,  
the fields with bitterness
and bereavement,
where once, the wildflowers,
used to grow.

now,
he is an island, alone.

deprived and dispossessed.
wanting and widowed.

and
with beaches, ravaged, bankrupt and heartsore
the reefs, encircle,
tho, fragmented, incomplete they are short, sharp teethed
coral.

waiting with,
patience absent,
anger rampant.. that

make,
the currents turbulent ,

those,
miserable, mournful, waters,

those,
sad, sorrowing, suffering, waves

that,
break, upon his grief-laden
shores,

tide, after, tide, after, tide.

he stands,
among the grieving.

unreachable.

an island.
a hollow man.
alone.

pick my bones
weary broken
heartsore
up
from where life has
scattered them on the floor

dust off
the grime
and salt rime
from tears shed.
regather thoughts
from whence they fled

straighten up
the bowed back

plant the semblance
of a smile upon my face

take my place,
near the end of the rat race

and put my best foot forward
even as the other foot
drags through broken glass
and the detrius of a life
lived to hard...to fast

don't look back....
just move on.....and on

somewhere....there will be
                                 some sort of comfort

till then grind your bones
on the grist of life....

taste the salt on the wind
and remember when......

Under the mountains
it smelled of snow,
and I brushed summer's leafy retreat off the hood of my car
in swathes of yellow and red.

I drove for two hours the other day
hungover and heartsore
because of beer and veins still filled with concrete  
to soothe the weight I feel with the sounds of the sea.

An hour from my town
is the furthest point I could be from the ocean.
Under the mountains,
their shaky doubles ripple in the lake,
in of itself a shaky reflection of the sea.
There's a push and pull woven in my bones
tied to the tides and the waves I crave.

this house is not a home
it is not more than a tomb

filled with broken trust
which was left in a rush  

memories made by scars
and hearts blackened, as tar  

she pleaded me to come
but i did not succumb  

for it is better to ignore
rather than having a heartsore

we went, that day
to your house,
with food and drink
gifts wrapped in bright paper
it was a day of celebration
all day we would remind you
that fifty was just a number

we spent, that day
gathered together on
couches and armchairs
watching the world change
as planes became weapons
and buildings became like trees
falling in a forest, peoplee became
ghost and ether on the winds

we wept, that day
for those lost
on the other side
of the world
we wept, that day
for those left behind
we wept, we weep still
when we think of the atrocities
that mankind can do in the name of gods

we left, that day
with food uneaten
presents still wrapped
heartsore and sorry
images of horror imprinted
praying for succour

we send our thoughts
out each year to those
who have suffered
to those whose family
names are remembered
with bell chimes and prayers

it was,  meant to be such a wonderful day
when we went that day to celebrate your fifty years