if

what is you never found love

if i never met you

 

would i ever have met myself

crawling in dark corners

light covered by loss

under the skill of retreat

looking for cracks

in the sun

in a depth

i never imagined

 

if i never felt your breath

 

would i still have air

to churn in my lungs

that sting for oxygen

polluted or purified

that i cannot separate

and would not if i knew

the combination

would i trust that

i have the silence

to breathe and rest

 

if i never said i love you

 

would i be incapable to know

the clockworks of love

to be, to receive, to offer

would i dream of what love

should be, soft alarms

seconds hanging succulent

in a garden of bloom

vines that drizzle warm dew

a surreal momentary candle

that flickers at a lurking secret

i don’t want to uncover

 

if i never felt your embrace your arms

 

would i just know the lonely hours

that move thick suffocating

as i wait mornings another

and then another

would i ever wake in sun feathers

that float on such a

profound ache that

is art is a canvas

i can never bear to see

how its grey brush strokes

that colour dull and harsh

what i’ve never done

 

 if i never saw the halo around your eyes

 

would i have ever been shown

the fierce joining of passion 

anger compassion and hope

all things that do not

vibrate in each beat of my heart

these side effects of humanity

i have captured for no one

in sullen ancient amber

could i be a pickaxe player

atonal in a minor key

overwhelmed by amber’s

symphony of permanence

 

if i never saw the ages move through you

 

would i count time in decades or years

20 years call for so much more

navigation than 2 decades

the walls and hull of this

half-built boat i live in

crumble if i kiss years or days

but decades are a sinking overdose

with precision-edged amorality that

cuts through my veins like

shards of unopened time

 

if i never realised where you were

 

would my unidentified life be

written, then edited, then redacted

certain my life shouldn’t be read

any thoughts or dreams broken

lost to blacked pages and years

 

if i never saw the right to hold you

 

would i escape in my wrong

just one time that becomes forever

becomes the time earth allows each of us

would i relent against my nature

tell you what you are

tell you what i have missed

 

would i scratch in my corner for

a finger or a thread that leads

me somewhere i have

never seen but confess

that i long for

sometimes 

Author's Note

give your opinion, thoughts, criticism (hopefully positive)