You and Me
Own a house on that street.
Inhabit my writing—
In spaces between words—
Places where I pause,
Inhale and exhale.
And blind to others,
You've become my braille.
But what does it take to be a memory?
One jagged arm of lightning
And a bottle of wine;
I don’t need you
to remind—
We’re on a ball of mud
Hurtling through space—
But I don’t feel it—
Only the turmoil...
But you can't relate,
Nights when I need you,
Your touch, your face,
When everything is jumbled
And out of place.
I can’t stand your absence
The lump in my throat;
I’ve wound all the clocks,
Surrendered to their gears –
You’ll come or you won’t;
Regardless, I spent
Another day anticipating,
Watching clouds again
And rain trails
Down an indifferent pane—
God, how I miss you…
But I have no right to complain
A scenario:
An old man lying in bed, dying, making one last desperate effort to recall at least one memory that justifies his having lived. As the last seconds draw close, he suddenly remembers the one woman he has loved - and though she never loved him, he sees that she did give him a gift that added value to his life. She helped give birth to love in his heart by her very existence.
How would you write of it? As a poem or a short story? (I have no intention of writing it, just asking)
Oooh, I wish you hadn't asked that - Now, I want to write that -my gut tells me it would work better as a story although some of the material could be cast as a meditative poem along the lines of Prufrock....“I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
― T.S. Eliot :)
I would love to see the story be born...once you have let it percolate and become yours.
:)
Thank you, my friend. I don't like to steal ideas so I appreciate your generous offer. Inspiration is half the process of writing the story - the percolating is the rest :)