A hundred dozen yesterdays
Slip through our thin pockets
As weeks become months,
As months become tears.
With the fury of lunatics
We scribble every memory,
Those golden, jewel-encrusted
Pin-fires of placid near-serenity,
Upon the skin of illegible pages,
Stuff them in snow-crisp casings,
Paste tolls on their pale rumps
Then realize that hearts and flowers
Painted on scented envelopes
Is too sanitary a repository
For the war-torn gore of truths within.
Every tear is guardedly recounted,
Each noticeable grin recapitulated,
Recollections echoed infinitely,
Until it all becomes perverse;
A droll form of panic-fiction
In which we remind ourselves
That even when locked in battle
We were happier than this.
Forgotten habits, little quirks,
The way you pulled your hair
From against your furrowed brow
When horrified by everything I’d done,
Martyred silence bleeding between us.
The gentle smirk upon forgiving lips,
As if you could read my thoughts,
Knew them to be coarse and lecherous,
Yet accepted them willingly as roses.
We ledger every sigh ever uttered,
Shackling memories like wallpaper
Against the bulwarks of our sanity,
Helter-skelter, before they fly off,
Becoming lost amid the harried shuffle
Of pleasures we wish we’d shared
And places we could have visited
If we hadn’t been so busy being busy.
Only now, in absentia, do we remember
How we wish we were there again.
Even love’s throbbing, visceral ache
Is easier than numb separation.