He missed the chair and hit the floor,
Head knocking against the wood polished with dust.
Darkness, dusk, night fell across his form,
Chest rising quickly and falling slowly
As glassy green eyes gazed at the dim embers
Of a fire long untended to.
.
He always tended the fire better than me.
.
It was a lone, dismal thought that shook
With the power only grief could conjure inside him.
Tears welled, slipped and fell down his cheeks,
Tumbling over their clumsy grief as the fire blurred.
He was beginning to forget him.
Beginning to lose the little details that made love potent.
.
I haven't dreamt about you in weeks.
.
What a fickle measure of time, days and weeks,
When minutes and seconds captured the agony
Of his separation so much better.
The millions of heartbreaks between then and now
Were as honest as the inches between
Whichever universe he had vanished off to and this one.
.
Bookends to the cosmos with millions of pages in between.
.
Eyes darkening with anguish glazed as the tears
Wet the wood and bounced in the dust.
He couldn't see the other side of the shelf
For there were too many pages separating him
From the stardust, the soul, the man that was his lover
And no amount of bending the cosmos would fix it.
.
But rules break, don't they?
.
There had been a time, back when the sun was bright
And the moon smiled instead of wept from pity,
When he had been good at breaking the rules,
Good at bending them.
Wonderful at getting his way.
Perfect at slipping through the cracks.
.
So why can't I find you in my sleep?
.
Was there nothing left to find?
The days were getting long now, the drugs cheap and easy.
He stirred on the floor, breath puffing loudly
Across the jagged silence of the room.
Palm open against the floor, he searched for the housebeat,
The delicate magic pumping through the walls.
.
You're not gone yet, are you?
.
Magic bled across the stars, across the black, across the emptiness.
It looped around his belly,
Cinched tight like a belt when he wanted to cave.
That magic was in the house, in the floor, the carpet, the table.
It was inside him.
Green eyes blinked and the dreary grey of winter disintegrated.
.
I can still feel you, wherever you are and wherever I am.
.
It wasn't going to fade because magic was a rugged sort of thing,
A vase he could drop down a flight of stairs and pick up whole.
Wind whispered through the gaps in the house at once
And he could hear his name across its currents
Spoken in the same low, dulcet tones of his lover.
The fire flashed and then roared to life.
.
There is no space that could silence you, is there?
.
A warm, ocherous glow exploded across the room
Casting its light across the slim body on the floor.
Heat flooded him and the frost in his veins crept back
To the grieving prison in his chest.
Standing slowly as the world swayed around him,
The man placed a hand on his abdomen and sighed.
.
I am tethered to you. For now. For always.
.
Cold air swept around his ankles,
Stirred the dust on the floor and brushed it into the flames.
It wouldn't last long, magic never did.
Capturing a split log in his hand, he approached the fire
Tentatively as though it would bite, and whispered,
"I'll tend to the fire..."
.
So don't let me fly too far away.
______________________________
This is another one that's part of a bigger series. See the others below. This actually my current favorite project and it has a spot near and dear to my heart. :)
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.
Comments (3)
Conveying difficult emotions like this is not easy, but it comes across absolutely seamless here through your writing. Amazing work! Great title as well.
Such despair of loss and anguish at slipping from memory! Loved the structure of this with the stanzas and one line interludes
GREAT writing and sentiment. Memories are the magic in our hearts that tether us to those we can't forget. Love it.