Emptiness

“How do you spell emptiness?”

I asked and she held out her hand,

withdrew her heart,

and breathed my name.

“How do you draw alone

and afraid?”

I asked

and tore the colors from the sky.

I danced that night the dance of the trees,

the slow,

drawing of magic from the Earth

as I cried for the changes in my heart.

“No one dances together,”

she whispered,

again breathing my name,

again tasting my name in the wind.

“no one dances together,

and together is not…

separate,”

she sighed,

“separate.”

“Look at me!”

I cried;

dull words that came back to me on that wind,

that most terrible wind.

“look at me and see me,

for my insanity is not of the surface.”

I glanced at my skin,

“cover me.”

The dance for that day,

again the dance of the trees

was meaningless in her eyes,

and she knew nothing,

only I knew.

The stars loved me that night,

and the moon touched the world

with her cold light –

there were no more colors to steal from the sky.

Afraid and alone melted in my knowledge

and she diminished to a shadow.

Here at the edge we are all the same,

and she diminished.

“you know nothing,

and have no wish to learn.

You know only of my emptiness,”

as the cure was lost with the colors

as the night awoke and scattered the day.

She knew nothing of nothing,

and still I believed her,

her honeyed voice of milk,

sliding the blade into my world –

I would not be that again.

The past is a story, a legend.

Remember tomorrow,

for thoughts of yesterday make you die.

“Do not wilt,”

I told her,

for already I had dreamt of fire

and of paradise falling.

“Do not think of the legend,

of what was or who I hoped to be,”

I grew enraged with futility

as her mind closed on false thought.

Drown this story,

forget these colors -the moon and the stars,

for fantasy shines form within,

and it is to the inside we must flee.

The inside is safe,

warm-fuzzy safe.

I go to the inside when I think of your name.

I go to watch the tragedy melt.

I go for the rivers.

Indeed,

I fell into the river that night

as she sang the similarities

between my name

and emptiness.

I pulled her down into the river to stop the song

and to find those colors.

I danced in the water,

again the dance of the trees,

and forgot of empty

and of words –

I forgot the difference.

I am there now,

sinking in the river,

forgetting yesterday and her stories.

I sink into peace.

.

10.25.98