Before all this

hollow shell of a man

waiting to be filled

with something

other than stillborn

memories

over 125 pages read

in one sitting

pages you didn’t

know i had

marked by love’s end

pages sliding

between my fingertips

an orchestra living in low notes

discovering a new season

learning the way

of loneliness, pain

mapped out in blueprints

from quiet spaces

orange and yellow

railroad earth

horizons fall with

delicate mathematic

equations

bits of you kept hidden

i’ve seen

you have more to give

from a heart of barbwire

unhinged doors

windows

souls of regression

invisible bones keep

standing

how bad does it hurt?

let’s hold hands to communion

to sunrises

walking into any or all things

blind

dreamscapes can sometimes

get caught in transgression

midnight raw antics

graveyard shifts

you may think

you are late in coming to this

but you have been here

the whole time  

four decades looming

over balcony seats

the watchers studying  

every move that’s made

but even then

it can still happen here

the moments that have never been

are possible to hold

but what hope awakens

when you are all alone?

don’t want this to be

the last days of us

but what i see

and all i know

is written in between

your double spaced

confession of an unlived life

you are not wrong

everything is fucked

it’s

all

FUCKED

everything is a suicide quest

because nothing like the sun

can be replaced

sway with the trees

in the dark like a fool

shed your skin

with dead spirits rising

trip to nowhere

but maybe somewhere

with me

i didn’t know you

before all this

and maybe i don’t know you now

and i’m ok with it

because i’m not afraid

to burn alongside you in the fire

(C) S. Lynette, 2023