words

where is there to be
if not sequestered in my bed,
bearing this cold night
like a burden,
giving blackness to the world,
erasing what god has put there,
removing stars
with the ends of my burning fingers.

what is there to be
if not the observer,
watching you go among them
far from here,
their worlds peopled with strangers,
madness,
you float among them like a dream
in morning light,
pulling me back to the sordid depths
of solitude,
again, again,
each time you move further
from my seclusion.

you seek some deeper meaning
to be had in all of this
and there is none;
you have left me
with pale ribbons and photographs
and these things will perish
but you will always haunt me.

slight remnants of your hand,
the things you left behind
that have not moved away,
the impression of your form
in my burning memory
and in my lecherous bed,
you walk my dreams and god,
you have nearly destroyed me.

-S.C. Martinez