Wednesday, June 15, 2022

in the old days

in the old days
i would want to write to you about all this
this devastation, this departure
i would want to tell you all about it
about the void you have left in my life
i would say 
how in the blank portals of my room
i look for your lovely body
its familiar bones and places
your corkscrew smile 
puncturing my heart
and drawing out my breaths

about how i'm using the recipes you taught me
how i'm wearing the clothes you bought me
i'm tasting the words you gave to me
every time i speak
and i desire to hear your voice in echo
correcting every dumb thing i say
there's no more familiar voice to me in this world
i am dying to tell you all about this
and hear your reply
because i assume you are going through all this too
and no one would understand this mess i made
as well as you

so long in tune
this pain is the loss of our alignment
its intensity and its reason
is just the very absence it records
that familiarity is what
no longer exists
if i went looking for it in you
i would be faced with the horror
of its disfiguration
as would you it in me

we carry each other's ghost
and we can imagine it as we like
to imagine it
i can imagine you
as in the old days
your tangly hair tumbling down your shoulder
your blissful cheek and your hip
ghost piercing through the London streets
like a wonderful disaster
the wonderful perfect disaster
that i welcomed into my life 
just so it could be messy forever