Wednesday, April 13, 2011

when words must replace touch

I used to have

Your breath in my ear

Your hair in my mouth

Your smile in my morning

Your hands on my sleeping

Now my body feels weak

Even in its new found strength

My legs

Do not yet know how to stand.

I used to have

Your sholdure to lean on

Your arm to pull me up

You, telling me stories of love and episonage

Of far away lands and halted dreams

Your laughter

In the gentle sea breeze

Your cooking

(feasts of color smelling of love)

Welcoming me home.

When I pushed you away

For perchance another way

I had little else

For comfort

But this intangible language.

Words and song and myth

The delight of the morning sunrise

And the silence

Of these nights alone.

Little surprise

I keep writing

Desparately creating

Typing fingers flying

Restless mind wandering

fingers caressing keyboard,

desk, computer screen -

It's your skin I am (still) seeking

instead I have only

These lines

To wrap around me

Only words, flung together, to hold me

Against the dark chasm

That rises too quickly

between me and myself

Not that metaphor or rhyme

Image or sweet solliquoy

Could possibly compensate

for my first language,

the language of touch.

I am missing

the cadence of physical intimacy

the rhythm of two bodies breathing

the song of your arms, holding.

Sometimes I sing.

Voice reverberates

Crossing

the divide I didn’t know I had

Between myself and I


Perhaps in this word-wringing

I am preparing

this journey for the next

for what will to come to pass

before we all go

falling.

No comments:

Post a Comment