Farewell, Phantoms
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I, heart on sleeve ... proudly? I suppose, in a contrite way ...
but it's beyond my breadth to control, so it is what it IS.
Indeed, I am a "piner", pure, I keep memories replete in my
pocket, like so much gleaming, priceless gold, and I take
Them out to polish from time-to-time, to warm the embers
that eventuality and concern tarnish with time. With open
allowance, I do so, making no secret of that which might
be considered beyond everyday allocation or stake. Such
Prose is my purge, thus, but it is a knife with two edges,
one cutting a swath demur, the need for it a critical expense,
but the other slices humility, and those who are the focus
of their creative intention, are made well-aware of the lucid
Agency of my heart ... such is the open payment for their
raw, ripened benefit - poetry, songs, stories, posts,
memes, odes to the ether ... offered up, not only for the
sake of a veiled dedication to all that YOU, I and WE were,
But added unto the former, my hopelessly reckless and
glaringly careless Spirit. I make no excuses for the fashion
by which I lay bare the motivations and clear actualization
that dwell at my core ... the world knows all too well how
YOU have put to your command the very breath that
speaks your name, and the empty hopes of a return to
the magic that WAS. But YOU are not the only sad
phantom that visits my dreams, oh no, there is a more
Sacred and frequent haunting that I wake with, it's taste
on my tongue even more decadent than yours ... its
strangle on my heart, more sure and tenacious than
any other ... the salacious battles that I wage with it
With regularity are epic, if not extraordinary. Exquisitely
seductive in all details, sensual grappling with the perfection
that only a first TRUE love can embody, and an all-consuming
desire that will follow me to oblivion. THAT apparition of my
Slumber, as real in my dreams as she was in actuality, has
played the final trump card, and called me on the bluff of
my severed affections. At an unexpected time when I dared
not anticipate it, that seductive specter found for me the
Answer I believed I'd never find for myself ... the answer
to YOU, the answer to the fool I have made myself for
your sake ... the answer to the laugh I hear whenever I
see you in your happy new consanguinity, the final refrain
To the song that I wrote for you, the one you will never
hear ... the scratch in the sand that is never there anymore
when I turn to leave that Place, the answer to the missing
harmony that matched my melody exactly and knew,
(Without words), what I would do next ... the answer to
our perfect fit of hands, thoughts, dreams, plans, bodies,
and the answer to all those intangibles that escape my
descriptions here ... the very LAST thing I ever dreamed
I'd be able to apply to the visceral grasp you have had
on my soul, and the sad finality to a hopeful thread that
I've held onto for SO, so long ... closure, true. Oh, the
phantom will haunt me again, I'm sure, and your visage
Will wring my heart of its silt, and wake me with your taste
still on my lips ... but now, the dream's waning will take
the residue of your love with it, the night's passing will
lift my heart from your shadow, and I'll look ahead for my
Hope, instead of always behind me.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden | Year Posted 2017
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