By TheFeatheredSleepPosted on
person holding black and green bird
Photo by Kristina Paukshtite

What if she’s me? The woman screaming without reprieve?

And what if she’s you? The body beneath the sheets lifted by strangers?

Every time the phone rings, I see in my minds eye, your prone form

fallen, or hurt, somehow

this fear I inhabit is years in coming

your fragility creeps up on us like a wettened shroud

once so strong, you’d take me in your bronze arms and

press me to you where the sound of your powerful

heart beat assured me nothing would erase or remove

your certainty

then the sick hiss and whisker of machines

a tube down your throat, a glazed look, no recognition

slack hand filled with needles, empty eyes void of life

I felt you moving away even as you stayed

gone and still there

a stranger in your face, your expressions glazed

even the taste of your lips changed

as if blistering over from sudden Winter storm.

As time ticks down, we look up

to salvation, prayer and hope when

maybe nobody listens

I stand over you as you sleep

your little bluebird chest rising in dream

I want to

climb on the bed and laugh as once we did

curling around each other in chased game

oh so much joy in one shared heart

when i was your girl and you were my

evening rose

now the dust has settled and we still

scattered pictures, cannot see clearly

all around are shadows and shorn warnings

easy to lose ourselves in fears glory

like gathering a bird who has fallen from glass

stunned and dying pressed in our hands

death on us now, like unsought reflection

glinting, glinting, glinting.

I miss you, the you I knew

better than I know myself

who would turn in her sleep and

touch me without waking

such was our eternal fuse

one into the other, no boundaries

and time is a fickle fellow

taking you and keeping you sickened

welded to pills and paper casts of closed theatres

we stand apart, at times nearly severed

I would sacrifice all to make you well

but i have given everything i know

it is clear we go in different directions

one is the end and you drift like

wind on frigid water

while i continue to swim upstream

i cannot, you see

let go

your bright feathers dull

and still i look up

when birds fly into glass

Categories: UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

23 Replies to “I cannot, you see”

  3. I’ve not been there
    In that room with a lover
    A second self
    Slowly slipping into
    “That goodnight”
    Several have gone
    But I was not there
    Could not have been
    At least for one, had I known
    Still, I feel into this
    Having sat with my father
    His consciousness gone
    Watching the green lines
    Til they went flat
    And the doctor came
    To the sound of alarm
    To pronounce the exact time

  16. You have no idea how much that means to me. I feel that it is my service to share this gift I have, not knowing if or who these posts affect. I struggle just like everyone else and I so appreciate your feedback. Many blessings to you.

  17. You know me well enough to know I mean it completely and I have ALWAYS thought that both about you and your posts. I wish I could express how much you affect me positively

Comments are closed.