Left Behind
When I think of her,
the metaphors behind my eyes
start to bleed.
Veins pulse in rhythms of her
inconsistent smile.
There is no heartbeat in
these words, I've flat-lined.
...Ghostly similes hover over what
I have failed to define.
Romanticizing phantom touch,
burning throughout the hallows;
like the memories that have
been the only warmth in this
deserted bed.
Metaphors..
are all that I have left,
I let them drip onto my skin
and wipe away the color.
This.
Is Finally.
Black and White.
The stories I've
read; and said:
I couldn't, wouldn't ever
deal with are tragedies
that have become my
living scripture
and I recite my scattered
psalms to a vivid picture
of a beauty that left me behind.
But I have loved,
and so I have lived.
There is no metaphor in that.
It is the black, and the white,
the story of my life;
My smiling tragedy.
...I can smile
because every drop,
every bloody metaphor,
every aching syllable
has been worth feeling the embrace
of what is now so cold.
-James Kelley 2014, All rights reserved.
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