constant craving

You are there, and you are gone. From the day's first sliver to the night's last straw, that first secret whisper to every candle wished away. So slipped each distance, so swore each breath. Even I can't believe the days I witnessed, it has been too few and too long. Even I make faith the dearer wager, cheating only to even out these odds. Your smooth flesh beneath my rough hand. Your idle hours once was, your history dowsed in greasy ash.

You say you saw it in the sky, counted it in clouds and crows. You learned to love the strange in travel and still know every exit and the rituals of the road. Your body turned in phases, phrasing blood and bone in hip and shoulder. The wolf left half a moon high above, and I follow you in hints and crumbs. Old flames and constant cravings. Life written down like it was songs.

I wipe up crumbs and dole cold morsels to my retinue of beasts. The television cracks its jokes through the silty evening. The chair creaks as I bend and rise. I ache in my bones from all this longing. I am lost in the stillness of every unlit room and empty threat. It wasn't the best that I could tell you. It isn't even you that I can tell. A face like all promise, smiling in a picture. A winter's memory that slips on every ice.