Poems

lables

Is this fear,

But the echo of my footsteps in the marble halls of my mind?

A stillness so pervasively foreign,

and hauntingly familiar,

Rimed with the volumes of past principles,

Is it these shoes,

Covered by the dust of a thousand gardens,

Hidden alcoves and secret meetings,

Worn beyond recognition?

relics of the secrets I carry with me still,

Corrupting the silence.

And that somewhere along the way my label was changed and I'm still looking for my place on the shelf,

and that all those past associations have receded with the tide,

and I am left to redefine all the meaning in my life,

Is it the battle between the face I keep beside the mirror at home and the name printed on the inside of my spine?

Or the disappointment I felt when I discovered that few people bother to explore my contents and prefer to read the abstract printed on my sleeve?

Is this how I ended up wandering the halls of this empty basement?

Alongside well-loved classics, whose elaborate metaphors and abstract language have grown out of fashion,

Who but the ghosts themselves would bother to decipher my meaning?

My value now lies in the faded lithographs that record the constellations of my sins,

As they move across the heavens in a glittering arc,

I rotate the globe on its axes,

To view the portentous omens scribbled underneath,

Foretelling the doom of prophets, kings and lovers yet to come,

The very same stars that I reached for, when my universe felt like a dark room,

and I longed to be filled with their light,

I wove my Web,

Filled it with dew drops, tears and unfulfilled dreams,

and set out to catch the first comet that shot through my sky,

Only to find myself burnt by its tale as it tore through my orbit,

Knocking me off balance,

I haven't been straight since.

It is only now,

As the dust settles on my soul,

That I see the path that I have wrought behind me,

That has lead me to this place,

Where somewhere amongst the clicking of my heels, words still echo,

Your words, his words, their words, our words, my words.

And there is a part of me that wants to throw it all out and white wash the walls,

And their is another part of me that knows that I wouldn't part with a single dust bunny,

and the fearless part of myself that doesn't mind being lost amongst old friends.