A dance of ash gray hair

And he, gone,

Flares to remembrance

Discarded matchsticks litter my bedside table

Until, struck, a spark

Curves into existence

And all you’ve been

Dies again

Smoke’s murmuration

I sweep the memory aside

As the stranger untangles into the nothingness

A refrain of repentance

Thick as prayer on my lips

A time when you could be easily forgotten

Dismissed when you came to mind

A time pre-suicide

When nights turned with you small and unnoticed

The fireplace flames dancing in the tiniest corner of my eye

On the coldest of winter nights

Hands unsteady

I think them silent

But there-

Chattering and bickering with a ghost

I fold the loudest palm under its mate

And pray the spirits have not seen

Reach me starlight

In your twinkling language

tell me where you’ve been

When the sky goes milky bright

And you are lost to me

She casts off her caterpillar skin

Flows into the veins of wings

Comforts mourners with her soft song

Daylight fades

Night grows bright

Still there is a little light

Back to days unsalted

Illness sucked me into a microcosm of life

Focused on breath, on death, on survival

Uninspired when the view goes long again

Thoughts of war trickle in

And I weep

Ah, the illness passes

I stand

Only to find a weakness lingers

A slide back into symptomatic

A slide back into sleep

Yet I am better than before

A poor cry amid the world’s turning

The rain-lace twists over the windshield

tat tat tats away

Age spins the same web

Creases ribbons of skin

My hand shakes slightly with its rhythm

Tat

Tat

Tat