The air sits too still tonight
.
Impossible to hide the stains
my leaden steps leave
on the bright
harvest moon stream
.
Which narrow street
could keep afloat
the heaviness of a shadow
that belongs to no one
anymore?
.
A shell containing a cloud
A cloud containing fractions of you
A cloud
still
in the making
.
As you
administer your pain to me
Intravenously
.
Drop by drop
.
It sinks within me
.
Just like you did
Word after word
Thought after thought
Sleepless night through sleepless crack
of dawn
.
It piles
.
A purple much too dark
Spreading, eating my cells
one by one
making room for more
dark-
-ness to set in.
.
Darkness I never asked for
Darkness for which I had no space
.
I’m overflowed. A paralysed witness, I see
.
my light
my joy
my everything bright
and all that had invited you in
subside
.
I see
y o u
confused by the reflection of your own pain
disappearing the opposite way
.
leaving me with the remnants
of your emotional waste
and the leftover memories
of luminous days
.
Days without you
Days before you
Days
I am going
to miss.
.
.
© Maria Kouvarou (m.ouv), September 2021 [written between Olomouc and Öschberghof]
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash