la douleur exquise

I etched the image of you, close against my eyelids

(the sky fell obsidian and i closed them tight)

i brought the imprints of your hands close to my own,

imagined your ‘i love yous’ ended with my name.

painted your smile so warm, the night forgot to breathe

i traced your arms over & over, until they were over me.

built a house out of the words we never got to say

the bricks were too many, the words brimming over

and the moon is different where i live. it is

pieced together. one that i carved from the scrapings of stars

i hollowed out the moon, filled it with all those

butterflies (from every time i thought of you).

Often wondered if they would stop coming someday

but their wings still whisper the shape of your name,

glow blue and silver-soft while i filled the plastic moon.

hollowed myself out, shook the last fools-gold wishing coins over

the emptiness felt cold but my eyes were full,

(homesick or heartsick, i forget which applies)

and with the slowest movement, put dreams of you in last,

knowing the moon could hold them, safely softly-

-if i could never hold you, but in these charcoal shades.

i sketched your eyes, drawing them to watch mine

shaded in the layers of your windsoft unreachable fingertips

ever so light, i brushed in your heartbeat, fast and sure

even as you lay with your eyes so empty, so cold

and a voice behind me whispering, ‘baby, he’s gone’ (g sharp a flat).

even then, i shade your soft smile deeper, sweep

velvet strokes of white for the breath that you lost

my anam cara, where did i go wrong? waiting for this,

for your heart for so long, and now all that is left

is a wish-filled moon. these sketches of you i hold

so close, the shapes that follow my closed eyes

i built a dream that looked like you. a shadow. all the while

you gave & gave yourself away in pieces, til there was nothing left.

and i memorized your intricate mind, filled bleak nights with our story.

after all this time, you’re so far gone. a wish-moon for nought.

the music stops, the paintbrush pauses. stars flicker grey-glazed, cimmerian?

all at once i am ashamed of my dreaming. and of a fickle moon.

i envy the embullient flowers for feeding on (an earth that buries) your body.

i am envious for death that holds you still. and to stand here-

-to stand above the earthy bed in which you lay. crushing the soil

that stole away my person, my only person. all at once it goes so silent, dolent.

because our story cannot be written. (ersterbend) .the earth sighs the moon crumbles and

i realize what i’ve done. the downfall i caused with a defiant dream.

how empty of me to be so full of you.