After I am gone from you
Does the fresh whispered scent of me
Linger gently on your clothes
In your hair
In your dreams?

Does it conjure me to life,
Transporting you to a world
Of tangled limbs and playful blue eyes.

Do you dream that I lay next to you
Head resting on your warm chest
As your hand soothes my cheek,
Listening as your heartbeat
Sighs my name in throbbing ecstasy.
Do your fingers burn along my skin
Remembering the firmness of my thighs
And how they made you cry out in the dark?

Do you see my face in bustling streets,
Passing you with a shy smile and lowered lashes?
Does every woman remind you
Of what is missing from you,
Sunlight dancing on bright glass bangles
As they move gracefully onwards
To a horizon you can never reach

Perhaps her dark eyes will help you forget my light ones
For a while.
A stranger’s smile may ease my image from your mind,
Until I rise unbidden
A ghostly reflection in a shop window
Gone when you turn to call out to me

Do you pretend to yourself
that the blazing comet of our love
Didn’t crumble to dust, neglected
Falling back to the bitter earth
At the first hurdle.
That you didn’t deny your soul’s true wanting
Suffocating its demands
That were too intense for you to bear
Suppressing your truth deep inside.

Do you replay our words over and over
Hear my laughter sparkle in your ears
Face luminous with childish wonder.
Do you seek a meaning in us
To carry through your ever churning years
To comfort your elderly hand as it clings tightly to one that isn’t mine.

Do you know that all the promises you made
And pretty things that you said
Were a summer breeze that drifted easily from your lips,
When it suited you?
They gave way to winter nights and barren truths,
Cold tears in darkness.

Words are a beautiful dream.
Were they real when you kissed them
Huskily into my lips?
Or a fairytale, even then,
A product of time and place,
Not souls colliding, as we once believed.
I would like honesty, when you are ready.

I was so sure of you, of your love,
Once upon a time.

If I tell you softly that I was in love with you,
And all that you were,
Will you know
Wherever you are,
That it is true?
Will you regret what has been and what will never be?

Will you know who your heart beats for in the silence?

Will I haunt you?

~

Photo: David Compton/flickr

First published on EJ here.