…of this old beautiful lie

I am spiralling into darkness
my heart is breaking, my tears are falling
and I watch as a verse rewrites itself, the words unfamiliar
ink bleeding through the pages of a thousand nights
sacred like scripture, a sacrificial offering
is this a trick of the darkness?
created by the dust and the shadows?
is it the ghost of what I hoped you were?
there is still warmth in the hollows where my doubt sleeps
dripping in perfume, stolen from dreams
as I whisper your name into the silence
your dark eyes were like the hush before a storm
and I filled in the blanks with the colours I wanted to see
I was tilting towards obsession
ever searching for the key to a door that I knew would never open
circling a lighthouse built upon a phantom shore
always shining its light but it where it was never ever, safe to land
but this was my mirror, my myths and my madness
do you know how strange it is
to mourn a fiction that you wrote yourself?
in the endless silence of empty space
where my illusions bloomed like flowers
I traced your outline in the fog of morning
and waited until the sunrise burned it away
then I thanked the light for extinguishing the last burning embers
of this old, beautiful lie
© Ann Bagnall