the life and years the locusts have eaten

it happens sometimes I awaken so strangely

I do not remember where I am

lost in a once familiar space

the reassuring touch of the familiar warped by absence of memory

...

the orientation of the room

the weight of the bed clothes

the placement of windows and furniture

all seemingly out of place

...

intervening decades retreat to a great emotional distance

like life lived in a fairy dream

an event once remembered with complete detachment

reviving with all its former power in the darkness

...

my forgotten self-rises from silken mists

the present fading from time and remembrance

deep and forgotten feeling breaching

the phantom stillness

...

I fear the reckoning

as a voice deep within

shouts with appalling fury, its once forgotten

wounds calcified within the marrow of the bone

...

it does not return to mind easily

save a terrible magic stir it from its deep slumber

awakening when unlooked and unbidden

crying out of an emotional void

...

but drifting between wakefulness and sleep

I am too exhausted to remember further

some mystic power drawing me hypnotically downward

semi-consciousness descending with terrifying speed

...

its weight presses down on my chest with such force

that my surroundings dematerialize

the loss of waking perception coinage for a passage instantly forgotten

and followed by radically altered environs

...

I do not pause to consider

my abrupt departure from my bed

or whisper to myself

this is only dream

...

one moment I lay within clinging bedclothes

and in the next you are with me as if never parted

your eyes so vivid and amethyst

I stare in silent wonder at your youthful features

...

you ask me

have you ever wondered if life is just a dream?

your alabaster beauty a lasting, latent image

seared in the retina of memory

...

I do not express my love

or hold your warm flesh entwined with mine.

in terrified silence I think

you are the dream

...

but I do not speak

a wave of heat passing through my chest

I do not act

darkness sweeping like a storm across my eyes

...

you are the one

who breaks the sacred wall of silence

reaching gently outward

your hands pulling me into your tender embrace

...

to feel the strong beating of your heart

your warm cheek pressing softly against mine

and we begin to slowly rock

cradled in one another’s arms

...

if I could

I would prolong this embrace to the grave

but the magic shatters when you whisper remember me

remember you?

...

I would give anything for one true memory

give anything to remember

the lightest touch of your hand

or a lock of your hair brushing against my cheek

...

awakened by my longing

the first dull gleaming of morning creeps into the room

and with it the familiar paralyzing numbness

the room brightening

...

I begin the retreat back into my amnesia

the awe of memories reborn

in the darkness quietly forgotten

the dreaming stranger disappearing with the dawning

...

how can I believe in remembered emotion when it so suddenly departs?

the last vestige of feeling for you slipping back into the past

I wonder if I might defy time and begin anew

restoring the life and years the locusts have eaten

...

filling the blank spaces of my memories

with symbols and metaphors still haunting my dreams

restoring clarity and color to the sepia tones of the past

infusing with emotion events that long ago lost their power to move

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For Lostish the unofficial poetry challenge