PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

In the darkness, are you here? 
Are the images of the relationship we created 
dangling around us like warped wood? 
I reach out to feel you, but feel nothing. 
Strain my ears to hear your voice, 
but hear nothing... 
  
Only the sentences we never spoke, 
the words we never shared. The seconds 
we passed one another in silent witness 
to the family motto of keeping 
everything inside. 
  
I cried when they told me you died. 
Not outside, but inwards, deflecting 
the embraces that were offered me. 
We were not raised to appear weak. 
We were not taught to speak feelings. 
  
Reality, that was your word. 
Reality as defined by centuries 
of traditions ached across the dismal 
foundations of some ancestor long dead. 
  
Like you, lying like dust in your grave. 
Still I feel your words in my ears, 
telling me the way I am supposed to think. 
  
That was our battle, wasn't it? 
The endless struggle to define ourselves 
from differing points of view. Family dinners 
in solid awareness of the caresses we 
were not trained to recognize. 
  
In the darkness, are you here? 
Are the creaks and groans of the floor 
pregnant with your strong presence? 
  
Or am I as silent as you now? Alive 
in the grave of the living, alive in the 
thinking of endings and beginnings. 
  
I miss you.