by Jocelyn Mosman
Your name is not poetry,
but it reminds me of you.
You are a half-shaken snow globe,
scattering your cold, empty stares
on everyone close by.
You shed your emotions
like snakes shed their skin.
You are a thousand white horses
drumming their hooves
into your muddy footprints.
I wonder what future generations
will see when they examine
your remains like artifacts
and dinosaur bones.
You are a single sunflower,
painfully beautiful and sad
soaking up the rays of light
after the darkness.
You are science and math
and everything I cannot
understand.
You can comprehend numbers
and molecules
like I can recite Shakespeare
and Donne.
You carry yourself like a sestina,
repeating the same six words
in patterns that twist their meaning.
I am your pattern.
I am your paisley and your flannel.
I am your bad habits.
I am your past and your future.
But you must be poetry because
no matter what I am to you,
you will always be guilt
and regret and empty canvas
to me.
You will be my tormentor
and my muse until I write
the poem that can bring you
back.
No poem will ever bring you back,
so I will keep writing love letters
on my palms with hope
that one day you can hide
the scribbled words
with your open hands.
You are every missed opportunity
and every almost love.
You were never a "we did it"
or a success story.
Our past is a tidal wave
separating us by millions
of miles of unresolved emotions.
You are a thousand lighthouses
in the distance
calling my name.
I am a plane crash in the
Bermuda Triangle
with no chance of survival.
I sound out your name
as my distress signal,
but you will never hear
my calls for help.
You are my dream,
my nightmare,
my lucid images at 3 am.
You will never come true.
But I'll keep whispering
your name into my pillow
and wishing on you instead
of candles and shooting stars.
Your name may not be poetry,
but it sure as hell reminds me
of you.