these gaps of us

these gaps of us

My mind is racing
As it always will
My hand is tired my heart aches
I'm half a world away here…

My shoes are gone
My life spent…

“Half a World Away,” R.E.M., Out of Time

“All love serenades must come to an end….As she gazes

at Milton in the newsreel, her eyes fill with tears

and she says out loud, 'There was nowhere I could go

that wouldn’t be you.'”—Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

i have weighed myself daily for seventy days

but scales cannot reveal what i am missing

(you)

although i know that you missing is heavier

than anything i have ever felt or lifted

and there is a certain hollowness that echoes

inside my chest and ears endlessly but silent

there have always been gaps of us

beginning with the nearly four decades

before you walked into my world

and then crawled into my chest like a song

but the gaps of us always held the promise

of crossing paths once again inevitable

and warm as the rising sun or your just words

written spoken or whispered in my memory

until now or more accurately then

that last moment that i did not know was last

hovering always above me like an anvil or rhyme

stationary but never falling or revealing

that other word to consummate the patterns of us

•

i weigh the same but am empty

i fear that soon i’ll float away

and no cast can mend a broken heart

no prosthetic can replace this amputation

i tread in the wake of my memories

and confess in a catechism of whispers

i am not equipped for this

i lack the capacity to survive

this gap of us now rendered forever