Slipping Shadows
Memories fail sometimes, don't they?
Shit.
Shit.
When did I lose the taste of you?
When did you shift out of the familiar
And into the territory of rare delicacy?
Shit!
.
After all this time a shadow left on my tongue,
An imprint of the sheets on my cheeks
Mocking the delusional good night of sleep.
How could I sleep when you were drifting away
To some back corner of my mind?
Shit...
.
I let it go.
I let the feeling, the pulse, the obsessive hyperfixation of you
Float away on the autumn breeze,
Slip out of my lungs like the last cough of an illness
While I what? Drank another pumpkin spice latte?
Ate a scone? A pastry? Scribbled in my notebook?
.
Shit!
I let it go!
I can't taste the coffee you drank,
Can't smell the cigarettes you smoked.
The heavy stench of that cologne in your car is gone.
What am I left with but a postcard, a stamp from where you've been?
.
A shadow.
I am left with the shadow of you
Eclipsing those pungent memories.
Left with a ring of coffee on my notebook instead of the cup,
The speck of dirt from a plant but not the leaves.
I'm left with the shit stuck to my shoe, but no memory of you.
About the Creator
Silver Serpent Books
Writer. Interested in all the rocks people have forgotten to turn over. There are whole worlds under there, you know. Dark ones too, even better.
Reader insights
Nice work
Very well written. Keep up the good work!
Top insight
Eye opening
Niche topic & fresh perspectives
Comments (3)
Great story..
Devastatingly and haltingly powerful. “Slip out of my lungs like the last cough of an illness” was such an apt descriptor, you never know it was the last until it’s long gone
A deft distillation of the painful truth of ephemerality.