Empty Space

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They ask me how I feel about her:

If I miss her.

If her vision still hovers in my mind.

I always reply with the same words and a feigned smile,

"There is nothing more between us but empty space and empty words"

It's truthful enough I suppose.

A chasm of promises lost to time, like fireflies on a balmy summer's evening.

But when my mind wanders it strays to her.

The curve of her brow and the angle of her jaw, canny in repose.

The gasps peppered into her laugh.

Her restless spirit that went from one adventure to the next, never tiring.

I wasn't enough for her.

She burnt through everything I had to offer like a spark on a cigarette.

The rainy days and lazy afternoons spent in a lush green canopy of false hope, as though they never existed.

Her memory drifts through my thoughts;

Sometimes for hours, sometimes in passing.

But it always leaves.

Now when she's leaving I can be stronger.

She leaves and the space between us grows.

The words fade out of existence.

I watch it happen.

And this time I'm whole,

In all my patchwork glory.

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