Reading Aloud

Reading it aloud:
You
Your whims, your hormonal rants,
The part where you sneeze
The moment you finally cry
I read it all out, your eyes open
Like two journals on either side of your age
With you in the centre, present in the present
Mute as a photo
Out of focus

Your nights
Your breath
The bits of you leftover
In text messages and friends of friends
Even music you forgot
Comes around unasked
The wall holds your face
As you fall asleep scarred
Read it all aloud, like a play
We’re listening to each other age
The clock waits for you
The taxi drops it’s meter, the new year
Opens and calls for an encore

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Gone

I watched the sugar cubes dissolve in hot water
witnessed you
reduce yourself to one adjective 

grew alongside your mistakes, raising them
as children who would forget me later 

saw you run into the sea, the beams of light
shimmering the horizon into sparkles

in old pictures the glow of your younger faces
serenely fills the room with memories now

I watched you catch the bus to the city
from where you never returned
I reduced our last moment to a lost ticket 
unknowingly

3.2.17