Losing Sight

You're no longer tangible
in my dreams, just fragile,
weak and blurred by distance.
We were
never meant to be
this far, so out of reach,
so out of hand, so much
a stranger to each other.

I don't believe
that you can't see me
standing here
waiting to hold you again,
keep the cold away
keep you out of harm's way,
but you grow alien to the touch.
I don't know these arms
nor these veins that pulse life.

We become two almost-wholes
broken and withered
and no love to patch us up.
We become estranged
isolated from warmth,
and as we seek separate paths
we lose sight of
something that was once
tangible
to make way for something new
something we cannot yet see.

Dreams Fuck You Up

I've forgotten what it's like to write words now. It's been awhile since I've tried to speak. I don't think you could hear the real words and truths behind every gesture of goodbye. They bid farewell, truly for forever. And it's not the not turning back which becomes the haunting last touch.

It's pictured at the back of a bus with street lamps blurring in the background. It's silent and we are the only ones here, sat at the very back on the top deck. We isolate ourselves and then you talk about how things are now murky and dark. You talk about how things can't get better and how things are fading.

I then ask: "What are you saying?"

That moment of hesitation feels like a void in time where senses were heightened, waiting...and then everything falls when the words tumble out of your mouth and I know it is over.

The bus stops somewhere behind Oxford Street and I decide I will disembark before my actual destination and catch the next bus. This is my final farewell to you. I remember that one last look and the bubbling anguish as I part with you for the last time. We cry. And suddenly I find myself standing on the pavement, watching the bus disappear from sight.

The next morning, nothing feels quite real. One side of the bed is empty and I try not to occupy it to pretend you are still there. I still remember the look in your light eyes as I left you on that bus and the way your hair was ruffled, wind-blown by the strong winds. But, despite the vivid image, you are now just a withered figure in my memory and knowing that you're no longer here makes you fade even more.

Taking Melodies Through

Have you written songs which ring a melody

of ending? And if it does, would you hold a song

just for me 

or would it be lost in among the scores of others?

I'd write poems just to spell out departure

from the arms which were so familiar

and then be ready to hold them so close

to my heart, they burn

and singe the edges of my mind. And 

when I take a step back,

I'd realise I'd gone too far to ever return.

So when you compose the next song

for the ears of people you'll never meet,

think about where the melody comes from,

think about why the tune takes a downturn,

think about me

and how I live somewhere in the air

translated through you.