Vocabulary
And I explode in the shower of my own debris
As I lament what perhaps had never been.
I had reached for a shadow and it had reached for me
Its outstretched fingers had flickered, frail as a wisp
and we had limped towards each other in the howling winds
At last, inches away from a long-sought embrace
Seconds away from breaking solitude, asleep in a bed of ice,
punctured by a single, scorching teardrop –
Perhaps we had touched molecules; but no more
Whisked away, the shadow into dust
Gone –
A swirl in the midst of mundane letters,
The repeating of stale, overused chants,
Bland, dry, tasteless words
A billowing echo through the void.
But I had reached for it still – the shadow gone to dust.
I grasped more desperatly than the word seize
Hollered louder than the word scream
Flailed wilder than the word writhe
And greedily devoured buckets of thin air
sharper than the word gasp
Then I had groped blindfolded through the thesaurus
For a word stronger than strength
For a word deeper than deep
For a shadow, beloved, whose name I never knew,
at the tip of my tongue,
Who melted away like the softest flake of first snow
Gone – at the burning redness of my touch.