Damage (First draft)

- Because what is emptiness but the
corruption that lonely space leaves
behind it?
Or is it the sunsets drawn by hands that weren’t
really there? Or words
splayed like dirtying bedsheets over our lips or
It is the phone call and the words “She didn’t make
it”?
Or even the “I’m sorry.” The one I am still desperately hoping for.
Because I can create landscapes where those words
fall from your lips like nations being splattered
on the page, but it never makes it anything more then
something drawn only by a pencil,
etched out with a pen.
I can sketch ships on the horizon
where every woman’s hope is on-board
but again, it’s never quite the same as time
catching up and aligning, returning all that should
be back into its place.

Perhaps we should rearrange the definition of “damage”
To “That of which we can never climb up from.”
I’m struggling to find a purpose for myself, other
than looking at old scars and wondering if they
have ever resembled something similar to his smile.
The one he had walking away.
The one they all have, when everything else moves faster
and I am just here, forever searching in pockets
for something entirely representing a motive.
Something else to move forward with.
And if I find something, then
I hope to god that he doesn’t constantly smile
the same smile my cuts recognise.
That uninviting hinge pointing upwards,
dipped a scarlet shade of red.
In the same way I hope he feels hollow also,
an egg pin pricked by memories of us and yes-

Maybe he has another daughter, whose eyes
might just resemble mine enough for him to flinch when
he sees them –
To cast his eyes down to his personal crime scene.
One that leaves me always torn –

But these wounds are only mine to poke at,
and his, to keep the hell away from.