(The poet never truly sleeps
writing their truth beneath the sheets)
A dream of you
leaves me feeling blue
and waking
alone
again
Aching upon
somewhere to belong
between a lover and a friend
As the time I held
your paper-like, origami shape
in my arms, without fear or qualms
You never questioned
my caress
but drew me closer to you
While the morning silence
undressed
our thoughts at the seams
Did you ever see
The stars shine so bright
Blinding out
The great mystery
Of even the darkest night?
Its perpetual darkness
Within which we discover
The truths of ourselves;
The truths of each other
When we with hollow
And impenetrable faces
Forget the depth
Hidden behind those gazes
That Look through
Into the mirrors of minds
Reflecting back and forth;
Lost memories in time
Endless and eternal
Just as the stars of the sky;
Scars of fire that light up and
Pierce the night
We were once you and I
As distant and as bright,
Staring simultaneously
Towards a future and a past;
Light years suspending
A life that was meant to last…
Here was the tide
Chasing us to sleep
Underneath the moonlight
Where we shared
Each other’s dreams
Covered by a blanket of stars to keep us warm
Not forgetting the bottle of wine
To keep us from feeling forlorn
Whilst rolling in the sand
The grains collected in our hair and in our ears
As we shook off the tumultuous tremor
Caused by future fears
And lay in the carefree splendour
Of a slightly drunken haze
Deciding that this is the kind of life
In which we will spend
The rest of our days.
No more, no little could words do
To paint such glorious gain
That I thereupon derived such speechlessness
And lapsed into abstract refrain.
The depth of such colour
So marvellous and true
Describes the depth of my emotion
In such striking similitude…
What gift is there greater
Than the one that brings truth?
To the mixture of my life;
Without you there is neither colour nor perfection
And I struggle to remember what it feels like to be alive
For when you are with me, you fulfil me
The picture is whole again
Yet you don’t realise that behind these brown eyes,
Ulterior motives doth lie
I never meant to be secretive,
Harbouring mal intent to cut you down
I never wanted you to second-guess me,
With heavy interrogatives furrowing
Deep into your brow
It is just that I love you, truly and deeply
I always hope and wish that somehow you would accept me
Yet that is a step I am unwilling to take;
Its execution would be murderous,
Undoing the brilliant friendship
That we have made
And so the story stays the same;
Loving women is always part of the game,
Losing them is what I most fear,
In solitude I shed a tear,
For it is always them that
I want to draw near
I don’t know what it is,
But that your primal nature
Seems to meet my so primal desire
You wander like a lonely animal
That is far from home,
Looking damaged and threatened,
With nowhere to go
Sometimes it is as if you know this,
Allowing the fear and uncertainty
To embrace every fibre of your being
Except you have me
So when you feel alone and
That you don’t belong,
Look to me because I’ll be holding on,
Making sure to never let go
We exchanged stories
in the heat of the sunshine,
allowing our memories to unfold
and rewind time.
The past we shared never gets old
like an ancient myth forever told
How we braced every moment with its each component;
our youthful nature always gave us away
– even when we had nothing to say.
And how neatly it all fell into place!
Even still our friendship is strong enough
to withstand Time’s race.
But Time has changed us through and through;
now when I look into your eyes I see a less innocent you…
The world may have made its mark
but I still see that old spark of years gone by.
Catherine Lucy Rowland 