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Hotel,
13/4/2006
Waking
on the morning after,
My
child beside me
Restless,
tousled
Breathing
open-mouthed,
The
movie from the night before
Repeating
endlessly.
Seconds
after surfacing
The
hot tears come again,
The
racking sobs
That
nothing can withhold.
The
space left by your leaving
Fills
the room,
Sucks
the air from my lungs,
Pins
me to the bed:
I've
never felt this alone.
I
want to wake her up
But
it's only just turned dawn
And
how could I add to her pain
Just
to ease some of my own?
The
purest product of imperfect love,
I
see your face in hers so clearly,
And
so it starts again.
Images
of you, her
Through
the years.
I
can see every detail, place and time
A
thousand little moments
And
in all I am nowhere.
Later
when she awakens
You
call to say hello
And
for the first time
In
ten long years
Not
one word comes.
My
throat is closed
My
mind is numb.
Not
racing: frozen,
Standing
still.
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Space
and Distance
The
night is just outside my window,
breathing
soft and whispering memories
of
other nights in other towns
with
different sounds around us.
Lost
in the breathless shimmer
of
flesh against flesh,
the
darkness held no fear:
Not
like here.
Not
like now.
We
fell in love on nights like this,
shaking
and moaning
and
sharing our hearts,
until
silence fell between us,
holding
us together,
tearing
us apart
crying
in one another' s arms.
Now
five years later on I flinch
at
your voice on the phone,
pressed
hard against my neck
to
feel you close
and
hold the rising flood
in
check.
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Falling
Every
time I touch your skin
or
hold you close,
catch
your eye;
or
hear your name
from
someone else's mouth,
see
you with some other guy,
the
space between
love
and pain
sorrow
and joy
longing
and loss
seems
to shrink
contract
to a point
that
disappears
behind
your eyes.
I
peer into the blackness,
but
no matter how I try,
I
can't see which
is
lying in wait;
which
I should embrace
and
which try to escape.
And
then you speak to me,
a
few words,
maybe
only one,
and
however deep,
however
far I have to fall,
I
can't hold myself
from
letting go.
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Words
Inside
the words swirl and beat
And
break against my bones
Cry
and beg and bleat
"Please,
please make it stop,
Set
me free, take it back,
Stop
this hell.
Give
me just one last chance"
But,
possessed by seven devils,
The
words that break the air
Snarl
and circle
Slash
and gouge
Rip
and rend
Never
stopping till
The
wound is bled.
And
I look on
From
a small, silent place
Praying
for the flow to stop
The
frenzy to expire.
I
want to cry, "It's not me, not me.
These
words are not my own"
Fishhooks
pulling at my bleeding tongue.
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