…keeps me company

Again, I have lost myself, I know not where and I know not how
I cannot recall who I used to be and my reflection in the mirror
no longer resembles me, just a silhouette, made of smoke
it is not just empty of me, for all that I can see
are reflections of darkness, rippling across sorrow’s sea
the night is blooming with the rising recollections
of yearning and memories
slowly flowing like slow rivers into a endless, restless sea
one by one, slowly fading into the vast velvet dark
I wander the halls of this desolate place
there are brief moments when I think I hear
the soft whispers of reality
but I feel a shift in the air and then it begins
the unravelling, the returning, to impossible illusions
the backwards pull of memory’s tides
ripples disrupt the shadows and suddenly I find
that I am no longer alone
I feel the ghost of you rising from the ethers of time
I feel you watching me with eyes that cannot be seen
and I feel your shadow, gently passing over me
like the journey of an eclipse, that lasts longer than any night
and now I understand, that it is your absence that is haunting me
in the hours of shadows, I feel your soul stirring
and now I finally understand
that the shadows of yesterday are still walking beside me
disguised as the dreams I mistook for distant memories
and the soft whispers that reside in the far reaches of my soul
these are the dark wounds of love
hidden in both the shallow waters and the deep abyss of silence
where melancholy keeps me company
© Ann Bagnall