never after

I have known the song so long that it cannot escape my history. It dredges the rivers, it drags the swamps. Thoughts surface with that glittering sheen particular to the uninterred. The clouded eyes of the past settle dead center, staring clean through. Again you are there, in those crowded, hallowed moments. Again you are here, livid beneath my skin.

It is so improbable it is always forged in wishing, hung with adamant regret. The very idea of you so undeniably vital that my heart begins to race. The very notion of you so terribly foundational that old wounds open and begin to weep and well. The person you were versus the man I never would be. The love that foundered in the thick fecund fields of youth. The story plays out the same way each time. From now to once upon a time. From then to never after.

Age has changed me, but not enough. My face is creased and furrowed, my hair either graying or gone. Slower, heavier, duller. My sicknesses have all grown sharper, my wits have all but drowned. You might know me on sight, but seeing me would finish telling you all you could need to know. Still, you are here in this tired telling and momentary music. Still, you are here to haunt these empty halls, laughing at the depths of this disaster. I do not know and time won't tell when I will lose you at last.