…of my heart

In my sorrow and my loneliness, the darkness is my only companion
it cleaves to me like my ravens
‘the defenders
of my heart’
the black winds raised by their beating wings, keeping all at bay
but I cannot escape from my restless ghosts
‘for they
still haunt me’
and I am clinging to my memories like spiders spinning webs
binding me to the past, the ghosts
‘of love lost’
whisper my name in the night
and the images they paint for me, the emotions they evoke
weigh heavily upon my broken heart
they appear as the echoes of all that was left unspoken
‘the things
that left me broken’
the constant ache of regret in the dark corners of my mind
‘the things
that I buried’
are now ever present growing restless in the shadows
but in a moment of clarity I realise
that my ghosts were never ghosts at all
‘but echoes calling
from your soul’
for I can see you
even in the dark corners of the night
I can still feel you, feel your breath upon my neck
and your scent still lingers upon my skin
‘time
does not heal
these wounds’
I hear you still
‘just brief moments
of hope’
across the creaking boards
and in the whispers of the wind
I see you sometimes in the shadows of the day
‘but you are gone
lost to me’
these echoes that transport me to a time of joy
that conquer the emptiness
for mere seconds at a time, are a gift
my ravens, my defenders, have allowed this
‘the sweet haunting
of my heart’
so your echoes can whisper to me from afar
now even lifetimes apart, we still share one heart
© Ann Bagnall