Angelo's Poem

Angelo's Poem

i have watched you, old friend,

and i have wondered...

do you even remember me?

do you remember trembling in my arms?

or sighing your pleasure against my lips?

do you ever find me

among the tattered remnants

of your endless memories?

for i am there...

at least, i would like to think so.

i'd like to think i am imprinted

and living in some shadowy place

within your consciousness;

for you have never left mine.

you run in my veins, seep through my pores,

and whisper your presence in my silences...

time has been kind to your body,

if not to your restless soul.

your scars do not show;

your wounds are within,

bleeding in ways the world might never see...

but i see; i have always seen.

our story is ancient,

written in the cursed lines of this time-worn face.

our words of love grew faded, tear-stained and faint

even as the pictures have aged, creased

and lost their vivid hue.

you have remained vibrant and glowing;

that blue fire yet burning, in your haunted eyes...

how i loved you!

how i feared you!

and how i have ached to touch you again.

but the hands that reach for your cherished face,

as it dances through my dreams,

have grown weak and gnarled and useless.

these are not the hands you knew,

and not the hands you held for comfort

through the longest hours of the night...

and now my night approaches, stealing in so softly,

curling its velvet tendrils about my feet, and rising

ever rising

to choke the warmth and light from me.

i have fought this darkness for so very long,

that i might keep this silent vigil,

this private pleasure,

of watching you.

but i am tired... so tired.

the battle has left me wounded and resigned

to the defeat that awaits me,

for Death will be patient no more.

tell me, old friend,

will you even mourn my passing?

will you kiss these cold lips in farewell?

will you shed one tear of tender regret,

over my dry and lifeless form?

no... i think not.

for in all these years - these endless years!-

you have never sought me out;

never felt my eyes upon you;

and never once looked back at me.

so you will compel me to die,

even as you have sentenced me to live:

bereft... and without you.