On Separate Paths

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i

I was made by you
a memory, dedicated to you,
no longer in full colour, and yet still
brighter than the torch of the stars
that let you and I go
on our separate paths;

I was never as so naked
with myself, as I was with you,
and now never shall be again;
not even in death, when all will leave this body
already embalmed in every vein
with every waking thought
being the last thought of you;

and loneliness is but a reminder
of how we overstay our welcome
in this briefest of times,
where a kiss should last infinitely longer
than our wasted lifetimes
without each other;

without you I am a false biographer,
a fabricated lie without its author,
rendered ink to the word
lying cold on its page; no wisdom left in this sage
but dead without its reader,
of which I had foolishly
thought I had no need.

ii

I did not know my own self;
how could I have known you
before I lost you, and myself,
to drown in a river
that still flows to you,
but is no longer of you;

left wrapped in a skin so still,
as if it wanted to hide
the treasures you left beneath
its deepest rim; and still it shines an essence,
sustained by a moon that now
takes no heed of lovers lost
in its harbour of night,

or the happier memories we made
in it; greater than any joy
we might know after the other;
such evidence of our foolishness:
to let strangers reap
what we had sown together,

to lose each other
forever in such waters
that flow apart on separate paths
we have built; in the bitter knowledge that we
dammed the river in its stride,
built with stone no stronger
than a heart's stony pride.

Published 26 December, 2010

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