When we were together I never had the right words

But now that you're gone I have a new set of vocabulary

Aphasia is the loss of ability to speak, or understand speech
My words slip and change as I go to say them - you know how a page of black squares on white, it looks like there's gray in the intersecting corners?

Or if you stare at traffic and light flashes off chrome and it's all blue spots when you close your eyes?
It's all in the angle of light.

I never told you that I love the way light leaves white squares on your eyes

I never told you that when I would go swimming and you would stay on the shore, in the right light if you opened your eyes under water and looked up you could see your two bodies

I never told you that when we would climb trees with the sun in our hair in the right light I could see your two bodies

Merging as they hit the air.

I never told you I believe there is a space between your shoulders where your wings used to be.

When I would have nightmares I would stare at that space until my eyes grew heavy.

I've had such real dreams about you - waking up with the taste of metal in my mouth

Hiding pennies worn thin under my fingernails and under my tongue

You told me once you could hear my heartbeat through the floor

It's like there is a purring coming from inside the earth

I wanted to sleep next to you until the mattress grew lumpy and the pillow grew soft
And the walls overlapped above us
I never told you I loved to curl up beside you so that even when you were gone your shape would remain in the curve of my spine

I never told you how I've been carrying these thoughts around for a year
Trying to kick the habit of making you myth

Left brain
Right brain
There are words that have gone flat from over use,the ridges and nuances worn down to nothing and being passed so often from hand to hand.

Did you know that they've talked of discontinuing pennies? The cost of making them in proportion to the value of the cent.

That I miss you.

And did I tell you that I have a piece of pencil that broke off in my palm when I was 13?

Have you seen a penny worn so thin from circulation that its features are indistinct? Nothing left but a dirty copper disk.

And I'm afraid of the day the graphite disappears.

It happened long ago that mines were abandoned, filled with water, leeching minerals into the rivers - excavating a mountain for ore is expensive,

Soft copper cheap.
That I notice the cracks in the sidewalk and how they stay wet after everything is dry.

I never told you I wore the prints off my fingers trying to hold tight to you

That I find beauty in the softness of a bullet hole in solid glass - the way it gets swallowed up

It's all in the angle of light.

Have you ever been anywhere that the sun drops straight behind the horizon?

Or the Isle of Skye?

Where the sky mimics the color of the ocean so exactly that there is no horizon there?

There are days that I want to crash my bike, just to feel the gravel in my hands.

So I can't get the words out right like how blood hits the air and turns red all that iron

And I have left splinters just below the skin because it gives my day purpose

And I don't know why scars don't disappear even though every cell regenerates within seven years

And I don't know why I still have pictures of you

Or why I wake up next to someone else dreaming about you.

There's a space between your shoulders where your wings used to be.

Sometimes you toss and turn in your sleep at night. Other times you sleep like the dead. You never dream, but sometimes when you first wake up, in those few precious seconds, you think you remember flashes of light and the sound of singing. That was us. That was you.

You can't see the scars there, though. You never bothered to look.

There are scars of the body, scars of the mind, and scars of the spirit. Sometimes these intersect. Sometimes they melt together. Sometimes you can't tell the difference between them.

(That's why it's always so itchy, though.)

It's okay, I know you've forgotten them. I know you've forgotten us. But we're not angry. We don't blame you. Forgetting was the only way to make the pain go away.

A vague emptiness weighs down while you muddle through the gray years you've been given. But the emptiness of having something missing is better than the pain of having something lost.

I suppose it makes sense.

We are the broken things you've left behind. We are the broken things you've forgotten.

But we were hurt.

You were broken once, like us. We were shattered glass fit together in a haphazard whole. But you left and broke us all once more. You left and tried to become whole on your own, but there will always be a piece missing. There will always be pieces missing.

I was hurt.

You tried to leave us, but we will never leave you. Even now you toss and turn and try to shake us away, but we will never leave you.

We missed you.

never ever ever ever ever ever ever everevereverever-

We still do.

There's a place between your shoulders where your wings used to be. You can ignore it all you like. Forget it, if you must.

Every night when you close your eyes, there is that brief moment before you're actually asleep when you think you can hear whispering. That's us.

But we haven't forgotten you.

We wait every night for you to fall asleep. We are broken pieces and we need to be whole. We need to be whole again. We need you to be whole again.

And you'll come back to us, eventually.

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