Penumbra

When I asked her about time, she said it’s just an hourglass.

A grain of sand for every day, promptly flipped when you were born, now standing somewhere to be found –

in cupboards at your mother’s house in fields of grass, in rays of sun in lavender –

and when I said that sounded dumb she showed me mine.

With her thumbprints on the dusty glass, she only asked:

“Will you clean them so you see inside or build me castles at the beach?”

vk

You held me and my hamster heart as slimmest of sun’s whispers slowly swayed through blinds onto your skin.

The grapy sunset in your eyes went well with wine in both our breaths, a bittersweet, most delicately helpless way to suffer.

Like the deaf man in a concert hall recalling all the rush he felt as tanks went by

I sigh and think of all the music that you made –

how stunning. How exceptionally not enough.

vk

Skies the hour after sunset oddly feel a lot like you. The clouds above, they break like hearts and tear like play-doh souls when hands of yours get near.

I picture people see this drowning. Baby blue to teal to black – tomorrow isn’t real just yet and like us two it might not be.

You coloured me those shades of absence with your voice. And I don’t blame you.

Everyday I made the choice to hopscotch at the edge of cliffs while only knowing how to fall

and notice: when the sun is falling skies stay still in one same spot.

You’re everywhere that I am not.

vk