…my heart is forever catching up

The stars drift further away
or so it seems to me
Venus turns her face to the darkness
a clever trick of the light
an orbital deception, an illusion
another word for the truths
too painful to be revealed
when she turns back to black
I feel it deep in my bones
like love reversing its course
or petals slowly closing
in the deep wounds of my heart

you return to me in dreams
and I relive every word, every whisper
whether spoken or unspoken
I aimlessly drift through constellations
retracing our steps over and over
remembering the first betrayal
reflections are never the truth
our eyes meet in the mirror
still filled with questions
we never, ever, asked aloud

Venus glows dim and distant
in her counterfeit motion
but like you, I see her
for what she is, a goddess
pretending to retreat
to remind us mortals
that desire never really ends
until love becomes memories
and memories become
another form of orbiting
and Mercury is dancing
backwards again, a messenger
a thief, and an illusionist

I remember things, I never lived
like the scent of rain that never fell
and there are truths I can only find
when I retrace my own pathways
I find your voice, still tender
and still refusing to fade
for love is retrograde
my heart is forever catching up
with the things I have already lost
my mind replaying, repeating
the same old memories
always slightly altered

you move through my dreams
unspooling the memories
that I have locked away
re-delivering them to me
so I read the pages of the past
smudged with your inked intent
old recollections rising from ashes
old apologies resurrecting themselves
every mirror gives false reflections
and dreaming is just another word
for haunting, and you have become
the enabler of my resident ghosts

I wait for the next retrograde motion
the next celestial cycle
the next trembling in the heavens
knowing that when the sky turns
and the past loosens its grip
on what can no longer be changed
you will rise again, epic in rewind
and I will meet you there
in the vast empty space
between illusions and memories
where we once almost existed
© Ann Bagnall