To lose you
Unimaginable
You are half of me.
You are always there.
When I need a laugh,
When I need a cry.
You know me best
You read my heart
You see my soul.
To lose you
Is to lose myself.
A vital organ
Roughly excised
By uncaring reality.
I have confidence in my ability to face anything
Only because you support me.
Nothing scares me
Except
The prospect of life without you
Makes me dizzy with fear.
This stemmed from a conversation me and my friends had in a group text.
I am blessed to have the most interesting and creative friends, and our conversations are always something else.
Cowdog Creatives (Hannah) took this picture and sent it to our text group, saying how dramatically it died in the last ray of sunlight.
Another friend said it looked like an Italian opera singer, declaring in song his long-unspoken love to the fair Limoncello with his final breath.
I can’t write opera, but I can write melodramatic sonnets, so I had to join in poking fun at this roach’s dramatic death.
It’s OK to cry.
Fair Lemoncello, golden wings and thighs
No weeping from those scintillating eyes.
I am content that you have heard me speak;
No grief should mar the shine upon that cheek.
What warmth is this that causes my love worry?
A ray of sunlight, yet I cannot scurry.
It lays bare all my tender love for thee.
There is no fear where Lemoncello be.
There’s nothing more to say. My soul is clear.
I cannot stay, my insect queen, to hear
Thy chirped response; angelic though you be
A darker angel draws now near to me.
I do not mind death’s amply lit approach.
Today this nymph developed into roach.
You take my hand in yours
But I’m too cold to feel it.
When I was younger
You were what I always wanted
This moment
The culmination of my childhood dreams.
But life takes bites
With every swim past.
This hand, that eye, this leg
This heart
All lost
All replaced
With perfectly functioning
Automatics.
Now I have you.
You who were once so precious to me
But I can’t
For all that I am
Remember why.
Hands
Spreading tree, fractaling humanity
Tips of tips trace gently, massage, explore, withhold
Neck
Miracle of engineering, steel support cables, connection to the senses
Here taste the vibrations of your voice
Eyes
Soft raw secrets
All is bared, reflected
Languid skin, humid aura, belly to belly we share everything
You are everywhere so smooth
Except where you are not.
Muscles
Contract
Arch, tense,
To the breaking point,
Pushing beyond human limits, torture,
Flashes of colors and geometric shapes torture torture,
We are nothing. We are the cosmos
Then
The massive overspill
Pressure eases
Breath returns
Vision lightens
And
You.
You.
You.
In response to the prompt by Singledust at GoDogGo Cafe.
For the record, this isn’t the best gift I give my friends (I really hope not). I’m probably not a great gift giver, because when I thought back, all I could remember were things I’d received. Also, this was the first thing I thought of that wouldn’t come across too sappy.
Hannah is back from a trip.
She hands me a little jar of jam as a souvenir,
Shy and anxious.
“Do you like it?”
We are at an outdoor festival
But I am not feeling well, so I choose to sit down under a shady tree.
My sisters look worried.
“Can we bring you anything?”
Visiting at my dad’s house
Our stepmother has never had daughters before now.
She is unsure about her new role.
“Can I take you all out for a girls’ day?”
To receive
To let someone else make you happy
Is also a gift
Sarah D. Silvey 