the platform hums beneath my feet as i
blink - doors shuttering, windows pulling
you into the dark; my hand spreads against
cold glass, a futile bridge, a gesture unraveling,
grasping, still, at what i know to be gone.

each step through the small town carried
the leap of a blink, the café blurring into
street, the street into station, the station
into memory fading in color
of the living i once desperately wished away.

i wave, i laugh, i pinch myself only
to slow the reel - pinning frames in place,
the film sputtering, jumping forward,
the gift of the moment torn open,
discarded before its breath is known.

the garden gate swung shut, though i
never felt my hand upon it; the clink
of weathered metal echoes in tenderness,
a moment already hollowed, swiftly lost,
missed as though it were never mine.

arguments, quiet evening, the clatter
of unwashed dishes, echoes that bloom in
memory, reflections of a brighter self,
the one who longed for the world yet
fought desperately to slow its forward pull.

the city’s night sky conspires with time;
i blink, and the skyline tilts again, a
stranger’s face eclipsing yours in bluish glass -
the world’s insistence carries me into the
next dissolve, frame by frame.

i carry every ache, every sharp whisper,
contraband pressed beneath the ribs i bruised
watching fireworks scatter above that field;
the memory ripens into sweetness only
in the instant it is ripped from my keeping.

if leaving bends me, it is only because
the days before, so feather-light they almost
vanished, lifted and cradled me through hours
i now sew into quilts of imagination, warmth
gathered in each patch, comfort-cut to my shape.

how lucky i am to leave in tears; the same
tears soaking papers, your shirt, my pillow -
the world tilts forward, insisting on its way,
even the dullest days returning with the faintest
trace of light, of who i was, who i loved to be.