I'm Leaving You, But Come With Me

I'm Leaving You, But Come With Me 

I'd take the road flecked with the late sun's gold

To escape you—but you'd hitch a ride in my pocket.

Every city wears your face,

Windows mirroring your frown when I try to peer through.

The world's tainted where we step,

Sullied peaks and valleys—you and I, latecomers.

Cafes hidden in alley mists,

We pass unseen, you with your map, I with my thirst.

We lay in the dirt, beside the murmur of a tired stream

Under nights heavy as curtains—never ours to part.

Clumsy tools in the hands of a blind god:

I pour my prayers into a trembling pond, a circle of repetition—

A ritual of taking what was never given,

Since what I yearned for scurried into the thicket.

You whispered once, "Desire wilts;"

Becomes a dry husk of a word, a brittle echo.

Onlookers capture your tears in their shutters,

While the dusty shroud I brought us was a trove of nightmares.

Misremembered, I let it slip from thought to afterthought.

Sleep is a stranger by your shuddering silhouette,

My eyes—dull satellites orbiting restless.

Watercraft of every sort drips sorrow from its bow—

Every vessel a grim reminder:

All things carry you.