i. One week, two oceans the only cleft 'til we are together anew giddy waves swell to breaking fraught with nerves twisted to a rope stage four is here nary missing its mark will you remain enraptured by me and I you do the shapes of our bodies still match can one understand the other what falling is it to be back into place or apart? my soul still soars and my heart still yearns any small memory tinder for my wildfire time stops unraveling as your remembered voice whispers in the hollow of my head I crave to talk more this instant alas you need space from your daily routine all I know is the little you tell me one quiet spark, left alone in the dark I can give you that reprieve instead I will name my angst proclaim it aloud though the words I have are dusty and awkward all I can muster in the end is a flawed reprint:
Myriad futures unfurl, though ones absent us are the most dreaded
ii. Time and I fly, and now I'm here but the shapes don't match I can't talk soft sounds spat get swallowed wholesale by the silence while the space between expands rampant
muted smiles and half-baked gazes shared sparingly as I watch
my breakfast soak slowly to saturation
a slight respite the day plays out go our separate paths
all my fears cacophonous
of that crushing quiet of the raw rift when we sleep of losing us
ich liebe dich, aber ein Wir ohne dich gibt es nicht and now, here I sit alone in a bar, drinking and thinking proffering myself as many solutions as I can hold tho' none convincing
I'll keep on as before doing what I can
to bind self-destruction to stop being powerless to keep us
I can't talk for now though I'm remembering how to speak
iii. what am I doing here? I lay at night, recumbent, waiting for the cold flash before the drop have I misplayed your chords? I may not know many tunes but those I do ring true will I ever be loved in kind? a year on, this time farce as my love slips through my fingers the bar, thinking place no more transformed to a haven where numbed I sit I am become a ghoul haunting the halls of our inner lives o' how strange is this bardo things are falling apart us waned to you and I until last left to pry is my wee tender heart
iv. gentle river bobs along while we follow its course sharing each other's words trying not to hurt the path back is littered with strife we talk and talk 'til our voices dim 'til we can look in our eyes 'til we are better again in the midst of all this toil a tiny tulip breaking the soil we learn from our mistakes sometimes one future breaks we get to work carving a future worth having
This piece was written over a couple of weeks in June 2019. Lot’s Wife accepted it as a piece for their print edition – Issue 5, 2019
Not Yet Returned - Cody B Strange 