Bookmark

I talk to you way too often.

In the corner of my eyes and mind you appear and I speak to you

words that I need to tell myself

I need to speak to you

just so I can practice what to say the next time I see you.

Perhaps I am projecting what it means to love someone as well as myself

a lesson I have learnt since you taught it to me,

perhaps I am imagining what it would sound like

for someone to try and teach it back to you.

Rather than slip outside of my shell I still hope it grows enough to let you in

but you have your own and I imagine it stays as small as the day

I last heard your real voice.

The one that mimics it everyday lives in my heart and is more familiar to me now,

It speaks with your depth, your pain, your encouragement.

You are with me always and still never in front of me because

Whenever I hear a song stuck in my head

it leaves when I listen to the real thing,

And I have to wait for next time I hear it echo

to keep and carry your melody with me.

I see you in the background of photos with our friends

guilt in the eyes behind yet another mask I recognise

You've worn so many over our time together

and even more apart than ever, I know I have to change my tone

just so your disguise doesn't muffle my words.

I don't even know if you can hear me.

Weakening my eyes with the glow of my computer screen at night I see your face

Online only minutes ago but haven't responded to my messages since a birthday you couldn't even wish me

To do so would be to end this imaginary conversation.

To acknowledge that I still exist and can talk back

would mean the end of an unfinished song.

My shelves are full of books read only halfway because I tell myself I'd prefer to savour the story,

I prefer to remember the characters as they were,

hold their words of love and courage frozen in place,

and though they entice me to pick them up again,

I continue to petrify the narratives of others

just so they can never end for me.

I wonder which of my pages have you left a bookmark in for you to promise to return

only to keep me there as I am

as I was to you.

Are you hoping to savour what is left of me?

Are you trying to save me from the tragedies that await me so that I remain unaware

because being stuck at the beginning means that hope is still there?

Are you sick of the words 'happily ever after' because you can't stand not knowing what will happen next?

Or are you afraid to face my end,

to learn the entirety of who I am

without you?