***

leesah-likes

(a memoir)

#09

2007-08-05

longing

I’m lying belly up
On my plastic mattress of a bed
Which is actually more comfortable
Than mine at school.
My brother’s music
Is infusing my ears,
Melancholy rifts seeping through.
And I am still, I lay there.
It’s a solitary moment of silence,
Of blankness and clarity.
In the quietude
My mind becomes awash,
Thinking of people, souls I’ve met.
The crooning words of the song
Seem to articulate it
In a calculated, over-simplified way:
“I miss you more than I knew.”
My mind and chest are ablaze,
burning through thoughts of
The absent identities I long for.
But like a fire,
I am left with nothing here.
Just the ashes of memory.
The drop forms before I can realize it,
And slithers down my face,
A warm stream that slides upon my skin,
An underwhelming, moist trail of yearning.
Yes, I am reduced to tears,
Because I don’t know how else
To say it or think it.
And I am holding myself,
In my own arms, me against me.
I gather me tighter, a lone embrace.
“Miss” is a janus word, you know;
It has two meanings, which are virtually opposites.
It is to leave unnoticed,
as if to forget: “to miss.”
Yet it also meanings to long for,
with fond remembrance: “to miss.”
I’ve employed both meanings this summer-
The former during my hours on the job,
And during my time off
When I scrambled for something busy
To fill my emptiness.
Now I am wading,
In the water of my tears, in the latter.
The song continues, I’m sure,
But all I can sense
Is the dull pain of longing
And my arms around my self.

leesah-likes at 12:27 a.m.

previous | next