At first, it was your presence
– for all that you were so far away –
a presence of all that we shared
in the winds and in the rain
in the completeness I lived in every moment
without yearning or regret
in my very smiles, even.

And still: still I’m as content as can be
still I think of you when it rains
still I smile in a way I’d never known before.

But now, each day a bit stronger, it’s your absence
in my decontrentration
in all the things we never did
in how I remember you more often
yet can recall less and less.

At times, as I look into the mirror
I see you in my own eyes.
Just a sparkle, that has never been there before.

Yet at times, as I look into the mirror
I see nothing but emptiness
grown a bit greater again.

At times, as I walk beneath the wind-blown clouds
I feel the endlessness you so readily saw in me.
But at times, as I catch my reflection in a window,
I realise I’m invisible once more.

At times I hear your accent in my words,
taste faraway places in my morning tea

– then I revert to drinking coffee
as colours pale, snow falls, and stories fade.

Shatter my stillness
let the colours run loose in my veins
razor-sharp and burning,
blinding liquid light
Shatter my stillness – if you can

let me lose my self
let me simply be the moment
confuse directions altogether
see how my bones turn into glass
see my colours twinkle through them
hear their screeching sound – pitch-black
echoes of your words

Shatter my stillness, if you will
just don’t ask me if I am afraid.