would that the night

were longer

that I might

feel you near

still

your hand

on my hand

on your heart

beating

slowly

your chest

rising

falling

steady

strong

not

silent

and

gone

with

the

dawn

I pull you from the shadows,

your memory is like silk,

a loose promise that

you will one day be made real again.

Yet just like silk,

you slip from my hands so quickly

I am left wondering

if I ever held you at all.

Memories can do this to a person.

They come from shadows,

cocoon you in promises

about a time that once was...

until it wasn't.

If my memory of you is my longing

than my nights are full of desperate yearning

for your warm promise to wrap around me once more

even if it is all a lie.

So I wait in the shadows,

a distant dream of a person

hoping for my beloved to come out of my memory,

to make love in darkness.

Only to wake... and find you are not here,

and you never were.

We used to watch the fireflies

When they shone against the black of night

And gave summer a rare magic

With their sacred neon rite

It was an affinity we shared

A privilege we understood

To watch them flit about

Illuminating the darkened wood

To watch them was a gift

To the spectacle we would turn

And those magnificent fireflies

Required nothing in return

When I see them, I think of you

When June ebbs into July

And the air smells sweet

As gentle sunsets tinge the sky

We no longer share them

Those magical summer nights

But I can feel you

In those hallowed glowing lights

They tell me now

The fireflies will be gone soon

And all their carefree magic

The song of the summer moon

Perhaps the glimmer of the stars

Will be the only magic left

When I see them I'll think of you

And the fireflies too

Casting a shadow on a blank page.

Written under the stars,my words encaged.

A flashback of your voice echoes in the still night.

My hand creates the sullen aura that floats beyond your sight.

Under the horizon, your eyes tear up, seeping like gentle rain.

My brokenness strengthens your memories of undoing pain.

you come to me in vivid nightmares

always seductively sweaty sweet smelling

your body molten molded aching open asking

but then always that twist of knife in my backside

just as I push to enter your urgent petaled pulling tomb

you disappear vanish dissolve fade away

leaving me panting wishing still hard ready

tangled under heavy blanketed sheets abandoned

plunging at your specter turned stiff starched entanglements

that do not yield envelope provide the soft resistance of my dreams

I walked

You floated just above

danced with shadows

I had cast in blue

metamorphosing the hue

to silhouettes of silver

The memory of you emerges from the night around me,

which means I shall never again be able to sleep.

Your presence when I slumber foretells anguish and heartache.

Being at my most vulnerable is your opening to creep.

I’ll drown myself in a sea of coffee prior to bedtime

so you’ll never get the opportunity to pounce like a cougar.

It’s the best I can do for now to keep you at bay.

I wish you had never entered my life, Freddy Krueger.

Moonbeams stream through the window, and a gentle breeze rustles the palm tree outside.

It’s been three weeks now since you left this world, and I still cannot believe it.

The same palm tree in the front yard that we saw every night still stands.

The moon we watched together shines, and one of your surfboards casts a shadow across the floor.

Big wave season took you away

I am still breathing.

Everything looks the same

Except you are not here.

I stay awake into the late hours, hoping that somehow the threshold between life and the afterlife will diminish.

All I need is a sign or a message.

I look over and notice the shadow from your surfboard has reached your side of the bed.

I drift into sleep.

Long black shadow

Follows me in wait

I hear the hum of its power

Its vibrating with hate

Its shaking with intent

And its harbouring ill will

A functional moral compass

It didn't help to instill

So im pointed onwards

Towards another abject act

My hands are on the wheel

But my conscious is in the back

The blood didnt stain the leather

But I can still see it in the mirror

Everyones on top of each other

To fight off loneliness here

This shadow made me darker

And with the seatbelt im tying off

Always searching for an out

Acting hard and shaming soft

The shadow rumbles deeply

This had become my obsession

My shadow isnt metaphorical

Its a town car from 87