It’s just you and me
alone in this room
of memory
called my mind.
No door for anyone else
to enter.
We dine on privacy
and live on nostalgic air.
Seeing everything
but what isn’t there.
We are always
best here.
Near but not near.
Out of nothing
into nothing.
Here your thoughts
turn in my hand.
We linger in the
backyard sun,
playing songs
about decaying
orbits.
On the swing.
In the grass.
we make love.
Stretched, sugared
on the over grown
yard of false charm.
Futile as the wet
tongue of dew on
the dying rose.
You touch me here,
where the pulse meets throat,
down my shoulder,
and lower.
Need peels from me.
On my knees,
beneath dust’s feet.
The weight of you
in my throat.
I taste the edges of sanity.
There’s no letting up.
No hint of the dark
birds overhead.
Remembered or
Imagined?
I can’t stop the
breathing air.
A victim of my
blinded eyes,
and the shadow
of you, infused
with what I do
not want.
Singing my fierce,
unthinkable out
stung melody.
Cluttering the
idiot air,
the threads of
flimsy pockets.
Trying to stitch
it back.
When I should just
let it rest.
This sweet delaying
of truth.
One day, I’ll tear down
this room, knocking it
into reality chinks
of light,
into the quietness,
into the empty enamel
of you.
The only thing left,
debris and an
unkissable memory,
the easiest to bear.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 