When we were together I never had the right
words
But now that you're gone I have a new set of
vocabulary
Aphasia is the loss of ability to speak, or
understand speech
My words slip and change as I go to say them - you know how a page of
black squares on
white, it looks like there's
gray in the intersecting corners?
Or if you stare at
traffic and light flashes off chrome and it's all blue spots when you close your eyes?
It's all in the
angle of light.
I never told you that I
love the way light leaves white squares on your eyes
I never told you that when I would go swimming and you would stay on the
shore, in the right light if you opened your eyes under water and looked up you could see your two bodies
I never told you that when we would climb trees with the
sun in our hair in the right light I could see your two bodies
Merging as they hit the
air.
I never told you I believe there is a space between your shoulders where your
wings used to be.
When I would have
nightmares I would stare at that space until my eyes grew heavy.
I've had such real
dreams about you - waking up with the taste of
metal in my mouth
Hiding
pennies worn thin under my fingernails and under my
tongue
You told me once you could hear my
heartbeat through the floor
It's like there is a purring coming from inside the
earth
I wanted to sleep next to you until the mattress grew lumpy and the pillow grew
soft
And the walls overlapped above us
I never told you I loved to curl up beside you so that even when you were gone your shape would remain in the
curve of my
spine
I never told you how I've been carrying these thoughts around for a year
Trying to kick the habit of making you
myth
Left
brain
Right brain
There are words that have gone flat from over use,the
ridges and
nuances worn down to nothing and being passed so often from hand to hand.
Did you know that they've talked of discontinuing pennies? The cost of making them in proportion to the value of the cent.
That
I miss you.
And did I tell you that I have a piece of
pencil that broke off in my palm when I was 13?
Have you seen a penny worn so thin from circulation that its features are
indistinct? Nothing left but a
dirty copper disk.
And I'm afraid of the day the
graphite disappears.
It happened long ago that
mines were abandoned, filled with water,
leeching minerals into the
rivers - excavating a
mountain for
ore is
expensive,
Soft copper cheap.
That I notice the cracks in the sidewalk and how they stay wet after everything is dry.
I never told you I wore the prints off my fingers trying to hold tight to you
That I find
beauty in the softness of a
bullet hole in solid glass - the way it gets swallowed up
It's all in the angle of light.
Have you ever been anywhere that the sun drops straight behind the horizon?
Or the
Isle of Skye?
Where the sky mimics the
color of the ocean so exactly that there is no
horizon there?
There are days that I want to
crash my
bike, just to feel the gravel in my hands.
So I can't get the words out right like how
blood hits the air and turns
red all that iron
And I have left
splinters just below the skin because it gives my day purpose
And I don't know why
scars don't
disappear even though every
cell regenerates within seven years
And I don't know why I still have
pictures of you
Or why I wake up next to someone else
dreaming about you.