From The Diary You'll Never Read

by

Crystal Dawn Allen

9:22 pm

You know how it is when you miss someone,
the ache that isn't relieved even when
you DO finally see them again, not until
you have held them in your arms and slept
for days, breathing each other's air.

The heaving, the clenching and unclenching of
fingers, fists and toes,
grasping nothing,

pulling everything near just for something to grasp.

Knots of blankets, bound by pillows and stuffed animals,
or clothes or scents or bodies
that can't replace the flesh.
It is odd how you know.
Though you close your eyes and imagine with all your might,
you can't kiss the image, pretend the skin is theirs
or even fake the heartbeat.
It is odd how you know.

You know the feeling, the intensity
of your need, the immensity of your loss,
the craving of chemicals your body will surrender
only if he is near.
Missing someone is like a slow death,
a kind of starvation of the soul's heart

heartbeat of heartbeats

the breath within the breath.

And so I awake each day as if it were my first without him, the freshest wound still steaming, the nerves still tender,
a hiss through the teeth.
As if it were my first day without him,
having forgotten the feel of my own space,
having become a stranger in relation to
things that surround me, for they are no longer "ours",
nor mine, nor mine to share.

This season of the heart moves like incense at a funeral, slow and narcotic.
I feel both light and smoke inside my bones.

The birds sang as though it were spring this morning...
They woke me for a moment to remind me I was dying.

And you, too.

You are dying also.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at Iamb Meandering. 234.
by: Azra Daniel Francis
from: Windsor, ON, CA

To visit all of Crystal Dawn Allen's poems, click HERE

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