It was only for a breath that I saw you
Your shadow passed behind some silhouetted appliance and was gone
And the words I meant to say to you sprang out across the chasm
With never an inkling chance that you would ever hear them
But I said them anyway, and they came out all wrong
They weren’t my words, they were his
He’s latched onto me, or I’ve latched on to him
And now I’m reborn kicking and screaming
Into a world I’m already desperate to leave
Take me back to the shadow, give me back the voice I lost
Hang him high in the ritual tree so I can turn away and forget
I want to feel the black fire in my mind
The unknowing of a song floating over sea cliffs
In lands I laid bare with my voice
Not this sense of rightness, where word order matters
Glimmer in the night of a thousand stars
Fly over the falls and, high above, breathe in the mist
Walk in crumbling halls as master of ruin
A king of a broken kingdom is still a king
These, these are the words I should have screamed at the void
Until my throat was raw and torn apart with the effort
In vain and desperate hope that you might hear them

Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay