to being a shadow,
No one has to wake you up
to force you into recognition.
That's why you should know,
you're perpetually present.
I know, everytime I mistake
you in a stranger,
it's definitely not you.
Yet I carry your silence in
each one of them to repaint
the fading contours of you.
The air doesn't become
thin for me. It already is.
The flowers needn't bloom.
The bloom is forever and
I taste the fragrance in my
mouth like I munch on your
name with each breath.
I've seen fresh horizons.
Experienced new maps
and I've experimented with
new faces to force your
memory into submission.
But the bloody thing sticks.
The fact that you're vital,
constant and Inevitable-
I hate to meet you in
rooms no one else can find.
I hate your occupancy in
my thoughts and I hate
the fact that I can't get
you even out of my vacant
gaze when I recollect
something nice.
That's the problem with
being reduced to a shadow
you know.
You don't arrive, you persist.
By this time, you're a
fantasy gone wrong.
A rogue angel back as a
ghost.
Ohh to breathe around you,
to think despite you,
and to move forward
without ever leaving you
behind.
Ohh to be aware of this
toxicity and yet be a
hopeless romantic-
You may feel happy about
the way you linger within me
but I feel stuck in the
quicksand of failed
negotiations with self.
and if it helps,
each time I whisper
your name before I could
realize I've spoken,
the only afterthought
these days is TF.