passing through your lips,
you are every note,
every thread holding me in place,
unraveling would only turn me into
a shadow and locking doors.
If you look close enough you’ll eventually see
each hair on my skin swaying from your breath,
my voice forming and reflecting
our need to join as one being
As I see the lantern’s flickering
light splashing on your hair,
the wind outside nudging branches against
the windows like ghosts softly knocking on glass.
I still live in this place where everything
froze in your absence,
the seams covered in frost,
floors and furniture layered in dust,
our skin’s former cells blanketing
the last remnant proving you were here.
Listening closely for the way to hold this all together,
you were every thread stitching
a world you would leave behind,
unraveling would only take apart
a universe’s oxygen and steal
the brilliance from its constellations.
If you look close enough you’ll see the remnants
helplessly floating through vast space,
unable to be yours but still refusing oblivious,
you’ll see the residue and echoes
covering like our secrets tattooed all over me
in the same way I was once
all you ever cared to keep close,
all you wanted to keep inside you.
I still live in a place where time
is marked by your absence,
by the seams starting to split
and phantoms humming along
the roads of cracks in the walls,
our skin’s former home covered in
the first signs of a cold autumn nearing.
Listening closely for the sound of your name
passing through these apparitions,
the name once carried a song
into me that kept me from unraveling.
If you look close you’ll see the notes
flickering inside like blinking lantern lights
illuminating the final threads holding us together.
