He Says...

He says, "You revealed yourself once, took it all off in the name of love. Dance, how you danced, free in your tie died skirt the color of the sky, barefoot and arms extended, a tiny dancer of dreams. I remember your hair, it was long and flowing, made of golden sunbeams, your eyes as green as grass, and your smile, man your smile was an infectious disease with no available cure. Your heart was so full of life and flowers, you smelled of jasmine blooming late in the night, one just had to follow where you led…"

He pauses, wishing she would look at him as he continued, "...don't you understand? No one really knows when your light dimmed, if it happened all at once, or if it were more of a slow death, you were so bright, no one seemed to notice when the shadows started to creep in, some say it was the drugs, I say it was something far more sinister. To hear you tell it, it was always there, fools blinded by something you couldn’t maintain." 

Never looking at him, she breaks her silence and says, "It is you who does not understand, you see, I was more like a supernova, a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its light only to disappear leaving those who witnessed it, the question of whether or not I was there at all."

She breaks into a smile, turning to look at him, she takes his face into her hands and says, "It’s just like you, to bring this around again, you long so much for what used to be, you refuse to look to the single event that caused such beauty to expand and retract. There is only so much a heart can hold, joy, pain…no one will ever know which consumed me." 

She looks away, her eyes drift off and in whisper she says, "Perhaps it is for the best, so few will ever know the experience, not everyone can claim to be a supernova…I am made of the stars, no matter how short lived, in spite of the shadows, I still shine...."

a tear escapes and she looks to him again, eyes searching, "...can you not see me?" 

BAN January 26, 2015 8:12 am

Self Portrait in Shadow'd Perception

 

Another late afternoon
leaves me in shadow,
eyes heavy with the weight
of unshielded hurts
seen only in the seconds

of dusk
when the sun begins to descend
beyond the horizon line.

These charcoal greys,
a play of positive and negative space
fill my thoughts
in the narrow hours

of another day
slipping away,

waiting for the night to swallow
all that remains

unseen.

BAN December 26, 2013 4:35 pm

Simulacrum

A kaleidoscope image
with each experience another turn.

Pieces emerge more beautiful than the last.
An arras of complexity;
spectral colors
assemble a chromatic simulacrum
that is me.

Please handle with care
and always hold me to the light.

BAN © March 2008