The I’s have it:
I, individual, feel so
insubstantial,
isolated,
invisible,
inconsequential.
I, individual, want so much to be
important,
invincible,
instrumental,
influential.
I, individual,
don’t know if it’s too late,
robbed of my
innocence,
insouciance,
imperviousness,
imagination
I, individual,
one day to be collected,
dispossessed of my
immortality.
Time passed, love lost.
Love lost, time past.
And so I ask you
now…
Is there a
glimmer
of anything
that once brought a smile,
however small and fleeting,
to your lips?
I felt the cold
inside your shadow
when you turned your back
to leave.
Is there an echo
in your ear
of my heartbeat
where you laid your head
on my chest
and whispered of your love?
Do you now say, in your
calculated callousness,
that not only should we have never been,
but you will act as if we never were?
If my heart was anything to harm you,
it was a kindling you set afire.
You hardened it to break off all vestiges
of love to remake, and rearm yourself
into the bomb you are,
laying waste to those who would dare embrace you.
My own eyes glimmer now,
but whether from the hot rage
or bottomless sadness,
I know not.
Only let the crows come,
and take these wretched eyes,
feasting on the memories of you.
Then I will stumble off
to finish forgetting you,
in the
glimmering
blackness of perpetual night.
These are the last of Summer’s flowers.
They watch their season go.
They’re leeched of life and struggle
as their colors fade to ‘no.’
Their perfume is not redolent.
Their vibrant petals curl,
turn into brown and sepia,
then plucked by windy swirl.
The icy winds of winter come,
to see them to their end.
And it will die next to its tree,
and lay next to a friend.
Until the springtime breezes block
the grave-cold winter’s eyes,
the last of summer’s flowers bloom,
themselves a worthy prize.
The tales grow brittle,
left untold.
The incantations dry.
The knight, the dragon, and the maid
forgotten, left to die.
The hunter and the quarry
cease their endless chasing games.
And all the wild in all the world,
the silence slowly tames.
The story-laden stars go dark,
the woodland creatures cry.
The lantern-flowers give no light,
and fae no longer fly.
Beware the rift of of magic
separated from the earth.
No warriors to save the day,
just empty, longing dearth.
The stories lay forgotten now
on dusty, splintered shelves,
and we abandon to the void
the better of ourselves.
Do you yet, even now,
find warmth in the rays of a
persimmon colored sunset?
Do you yet, even now,
find the smoke of your pipe
laden with wisdom, laughter,
and gentle gibes from your companions?
Do you yet, even now,
find hope in a blossom that insists
on growing
through the snow?
Do you yet, even now, hope for love,
or see it from this side as a treasure for
others to find?
Do you yet, even now,
give wan smiles at worn memories
when it rains?
Do you yet, even now,
take small comfort
standing just outside
the circle of light?
To be seen as a shadow
that wants to burn bright.
Take small comfort then,
that those who pass by you
in the middle of the night
do not see you at all.
Beyond Panic 