Slipping Shadows

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.