this room. the smell of cedar & rats those you have left behind the floorboards throb beneath my feet i run my fingers over the walls for i see no sign of you i search for a braille pattern some secret message i feel the boards with my toes seeking loose ones for inside a diary of our days telling me how you were i scratch your name in the plaster for you leave nothing of yourself behind who will know you were here the handwriting's obviously mine a false monument of these long days you arrived so young & fresh-faced blonde locks in your shining eyes, rosy-cheeked & sparkling you've grown so old beneath my thumb all the lights are out now sun warms the golden floor that throbs in your absence i see your eyes every day & we keep our distance, never touch wary, circling why then when faces vanish are we drawn into them the walls echo with voices & yours is not among them through the greasy pane i watch you, cigarette nonchalant in hand slumped into the truck & away while your lover's mother cries into the snowdrift her little boy leaving her little boy gone be kind to him & stay well stay well... i run my fingers over the walls searching for cracks a crack i find a handprint in blood & fit my own hand to it trying to see, to crack this shell i know you were trapped too & crying out in the dark but i turned away hands over my ears didn't offer my hands to help you up & out maybe because i was down in the dark with you & could pull you nowhere but closer to me your fear stank repelled me i turned away & tried to read your voice from your shadow a faulty trick at best you would take my things & hide them away for yourself so i did the same we have taken from each other given nothing & now you are gone my things in your arms yours i keep out of spite, not want for i'd rather my own
i was touched watching his mother say goodbye standing in the snow watching his movements her hand reaching to him touching his shoulder i wanted to cry for her knowing she may never see her little boy again
i had expected a feeling of elation of wings taking flight joy happiness relief but instead there is this hollowness inside an empty place where echoes of your voices rattle in my head