Vocabulary

And I explode in the shower of my own debris

As I lament what perhaps had never been.

I had reached for a shadow and it had reached for me

Its outstretched fingers had flickered, frail as a wisp

and we had limped towards each other in the howling winds

At last, inches away from a long-sought embrace

Seconds away from breaking solitude, asleep in a bed of ice,

punctured by a single, scorching teardrop –

Perhaps we had touched molecules; but no more

Whisked away, the shadow into dust

Gone –

A swirl in the midst of mundane letters,

The repeating of stale, overused chants,

Bland, dry, tasteless words

A billowing echo through the void.

But I had reached for it still – the shadow gone to dust.

I grasped more desperatly than the word seize

Hollered louder than the word scream

Flailed wilder than the word writhe

And greedily devoured buckets of thin air

sharper than the word gasp

Then I had groped blindfolded through the thesaurus

For a word stronger than strength

For a word deeper than deep

For a shadow, beloved, whose name I never knew,

at the tip of my tongue,

Who melted away like the softest flake of first snow

Gone – at the burning redness of my touch.