against my will

katarina vavrova

artwork: katarina vavrova

against my will
there’ll come a day
when the sudden nearness of you
will not be greeted by a song
words circling around my head
behind my eyelids
pushing their way
past my teeth
i will ask what lies
between your body and mine
what memories
i can’t erase with my skin
even as my breath flies inside you
and we don’t know whose scent is whose
lovers should take their bodies
with them when they leave
and not leave them behind
with treacheries of the past
and miseries of daily life forgotten
glossed over by absence
emerging later
with newly discovered souls
and verities
saying
our house
our children
our bed
our life

claiming back their place
i am but a squatter in your heart
with my bare self
inventing our current existence
step by step
so much distance to cover
time lost and found and lost again
our chosen life
ours to hold but for a while
love is not for the faint of heart
breathing in and out
irregular heartbeats
marking the time
a hand on a drum
marking wishes
that can’t be spoken outloud
squandering feelings
trying to remember
what it was like
to live with whom and whose
habitual hands closed your eyes
and the comfort of old clothes
this dreaming does not end
what happened once happens again
against my will
i’d set fire to my name
leaving nothing to salvage
no trace of my passage
in the temporary shelter of your heart
against my will
i’d dance in the wreckage
under the eviction notice

michele voltaire marcelin

2 Responses to “against my will”

  1. Out of this river of ashes
    we shall swim
    aware
    barely breathing
    waiting
    eager
    knowing

    GAU

  2. Octavio Zaya says:

    And for your love
    I picked the still burning ashes
    -that’s what’s left-
    to paint your name
    on the bleeding forehead
    of my thoughts.

    I know you won’t miss much.
    You’re well acquainted with the touch
    of the velvet hand behind the mirror
    that saved the letters of your name
    you painted once with lipstick.

    I’m just the man who lost you
    in the cinders, who still believes
    one day the sea will dry all up
    to let your name shine once again
    on the ephemeral sand
    to dissipate the sadness that’s my life.

    OZ

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