Just Your Voice

Source: sailorsandsluts.tumblr.com via Nicole on Pinterest

Damn,
 just your voice,
 an elixir.
              Seven years and that sounds perfect, like some lucky number.  A
                                                                    completion.
 Some long journey absolute circling back.
            But I'm trying not to
do that-
     to reduce right away, like I am, to
                          the meaning, supreme- like I want
                          to.
I'm trying to
keep my cool.
 And each slight pause, I'm  panicking
                                               to keep it going,
 keep it coming,
say enough
 but not
                                               too much.
  I've never been good at that.
But just yesterday, a week ago,
                             a year ago,
 I couldn't breathe
 or bear the thought of never.
 So,
the sliver lines like silver
 the cloud
that's lingered, holding downpour,
                                                        waiting, of all dreams of day.  I''ll be the first to
                                                                                                            say, it's
less than sane, but it's always been that way with
                                         you.  Every cliche I've
                                                  ever worked to avoid
crashes bold and unashamed
                                                                           confessing in the beat of leaked tenderness.  Across lines, can
you tell?
 Who's the junkie now, paranoid and high?
  Oh, that great man
                 who knew so much, who said of this before me,
what was once behind me, brings to mind the revelation of what was always there.
 He spoke to me,
and the great man you held in wait, severed by,
 let's call it,
fate.
 Sluttish,
         slow and slip of tongue, of life stinted.
 I'm softly exhaling
                                  that torrent
                                            of torment
                                                 to inhale a new, less
potent fragrance
 in all its impossibility.  Can I trust my
                                           mind this time?
Keep talking, I'll keep listening, afraid to say goodbye.
 Why are you not here?
 I'd fall
                                                                                     flat with my words
 and on my face
 before
I'd let you go again.

Write at the Merge