sobriquet

It’s been a while, but I still hear your voice. I still turn to tell you something before I realize that you’ve gone. I haunt my house, I move in slow circles if I move at all, muttering through the dismal drudge of my hapless heart. I answer you aloud, these imaginary conversations I have in my head seemingly sticking with me unto death. Then I hear my voice and the trance is broken. I find myself alone, staring at a wall or a lamp, awake within this further falling. 

The days expand and contract, spilling steam and salt while the sky runs wild. I sit on the front porch as the music dreams and smoke em if I got em. I read a passage or poem, see a show that I think you’d like, or a funny thing that one of the animals did. I keep them to myself, and the world turns as it is it’s wont. The birds raise up a ruckus, a rousing chorus of chirrups and harsh scolds, the wind making every tree wave goodbye. Goodbye bird, goodbye tree, goodbye the heart inside of me. 

There’s words I can’t hear without feeling a clout, terms of endearment, little scraps of jokes and moments freshly buried. Months and years, the time it takes to disappear, the way my heart insists things aren’t so. All left out for the weather to wear and the wind to blow. The days so empty and threadbare in the space you held. Gone all at once, though always going, a box of letters and the ledger in the red. Kisses and courtesies, and too many memories, leaving me with a lot of things I never wanted and a name I can no longer say. Still, I hear your voice, and listen.