Home » Poems » Rachel Temkin » Lost Things

Lost Things

I woke up one morning in a world full of lost things,
with no recollection of how i got there.
They curled around me and taunted me, examined me carefully with their hands so that they could better see me.
And when they found my ears they whispered in voices so soft I could scarcely discern if they spoke at all,
and told me of epic lovers until we bled together.
They shared with me what it would be like to be a lost thing too.
So full of inaccessible power, of sinful yearning, wanton longing, so full of empty space.
And then they presented me with a second hand clock,
small and brass and on a chain for my pocket so that I may never lose it.
They showed me and told me "fill it."
Then they felt behind my eyes and turned my senses higher,
Made everything so bright and lovely that it caused me terrible pain.
But with it I made life. I made such wonderful oceans,
I fostered worlds and tried to use them to follow out what I had been commanded.
And when the hands on my watch no longer ticked beneath the weight,
I forgot there was ever anything before my silent command "fill it."
Their voices ring out like angels,
they still sing to me of lovers. I want to sing too.
But the next thing they touched was my mouth,
and from it removed all its memories
yet left and burned in it the faintest ghost of what it would be like to ever have felt.
So that in its efforts to resurface,
it forgot how to speak.
At night, though less over time, (and I had long since lost track of that),
the other lost things will weave themselves around me like slippery shades,
and nuzzle into my neck as a purring kitten until I let them into my arms for the evening.
They'd hold me down and keep me awake as they sang to me foreign folk songs.
Occasionally they would break their song, and wait for me to pick up their melody,
and when I would it sounded too conspicuously like wailing.
They'd be gone.
I am not ready and I am not even sure for what.
I think about deliverance,
but less so with every passing phantom tick.
It is beautiful here, or so I think. I have no comparison.
There are so many oceans.
It's a wondrous case of Stockholm I'm sure,
but nonetheless a purposeful one.
One of vivacious heartache, of my own design,
When the lost things, my strange companions, come for me again and find me,
and we find other lost things -like me,
And we make worlds together.

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.