over yonder

It is only that least touch of light finding flesh, that tiny fire you ignite exposed to the household torches and window shine. It is that soft breath captured upon a pillow, that scent of lingering contentment you trail in your dreams. It is that sense of rapture you reveal, glancing out a window in the hum and rattle of a morning train. All these little things endure, in the dense empty of your absence. All these small facets glow, in the temper of these luckless rooms alone.

I sift through failings, through the liquid insistence of sweat and blood, that absolution sea water wishes upon the gutted beach. All these shells and detritus, the tide pools squirming with lost consensus. The sun falling upon open gutters and broken glass. The stars are farther now, the earth caught in a tail spin, every waking moment full of shelves and spiders. Your name escapes me last. This distance is complete.

You will wake to strangers voices, to strong coffee and warm sheets. You will sort through details, news stories and inside jokes, photos fielded from far away by close friends and alien worlds. You will love strongly and laugh for free, in this other life you have nursed back to life. Once timeless, now you tremble, thinking of the meaning of my name. Once won, now you win simply by waking. Your eyes fixed and distant, some star guiding lost travelers countless thousands of miles away. Your eyes alight, through that brittle window, in that pale lamplight.