An Odyssey

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning, but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight --"

Just as you have given me these moments, I give to you these words.

Perhaps those times they meant to you a flux, a habit;

To me they meant a higher sky, a deeper abyss,

A splintered raft urged by a great north wind.

With each secret breath I take, you take, I took

In your scent, your space, your sense

Of the world, and each day I dread I adore you more.

We held these words, exchanged

Your foreign idiom with mine.

Brought to light ennui's shaded presence,

You took me by a stranger sign;

Brief, porous pleasure,

Be night or noon, do what you wish,

And I would have given in.

The Devil does well what he chooses to do.

How you should wonder, as if unfathomable,

Why I cling to safety and not drift by your danger.

How you couldn't see,

(perhaps you never tried)

The heart I so blatantly bare

Whose fear's what keeps me so --

For if you love someone

And you're not afraid to lose them,

Then the only person you can ever love is you.

But the night is itself a screen

Upon which I strangely contemplate and weave.

I take pictures of my memory,

Smell your warmth and taste your laugh,

Memorise your quirky speech,

Fingers through my hair.

I do not want to forget.

But today I leave you behind;

A print polaroid on my wall.