Strangers

A twist in the gut

a hollowed out point

You said you said you said

But it doesn’t mean you meant.

There’s a room in the house

Made of cobwebs and old books

with rotting spines

And here in this room is the truth

I long to forget

In a hole in the floor

With the carpet over top

and a table of glass

Sits the box of things that cannot be

unknown.

A story you’d never told

of life lived before

us

A life seen only in the photographs

scattered on the floor

You said you said you said

But it doesn’t make it truth.

There’s the sound of something

shattering in the hallway

The cat dropping vases but it sounds

Like the way my beating heart feels

as it drops out through my ribs,

Tumbles down along the staircase

and into the gloomy corners of the world

you never let me see.

The box is in my hands

and I hold onto it

like the truth that it is

And how heavy it feels,

filled only with the black and white

of days gone by.

On the other side of the world,

there are people who remember

the crinkle of your smile.

They hold your dimples

inside their minds

and think of where you are now.

And I wonder,

is it me who knows best,

all the echoes of your heartbeat?

Or is it them?