Please, Just Let Me Write For You

Please, Just Let Me Write For You

Please, just let me write for you.
I have an empty page
And a heart that’s brimming over
With bittersweet, borrowed emotion.
I need to extract it
Like a precious ore from earth
Like the pips from a soft-scented fruit
Like the venom from a wound.
Now that we’ve lost the wonder that we had
Please, let’s preserve the fading traces
And not pretend it didn’t matter
And that we never cared.
Condense, distil, exact
Into a golden drop of summer sighs
The softness of your shirt, the way
Your lips curved when you smiled-
Dry my eyes. Smile. Seal the phial.

My soul bleeds ink.

Neutral pen captures our beauty
Our foolish pleasure, imperfections
As though we stand palm to palm
In a looking glass spotted with age.
Pale suggestions of winter sun
Alight liquid eyes, tousled gold of hair.

This one last thing I do for you
Because of you, in mind of you
Behind you and in spite of you-
I’ll never do again.

But I won’t deny I miss us, my
once-lover, sometimes-friend.