Sunset burns
in my eyes
like a piece of nostalgia
not yet extinguished
at the border
of steel and soil
shadows stretch long
become a silent giant
bearing the weight of all these years
standing still in the fissure
of time
at the street corner where
town meets countryside
I remember the sparkling beach
waves murmur in foam
lapping the shores of memory
on the other side
it's the roar of bulldozers
the arousal of city’s neon
sinking into a soft sofa
is what many dwellers here call life
two souls twist in the night
loneliness heavier than our skeletons
two unfamiliar thoughts pressed
in a momentarily illusion
breaths synced like a metronome
falling and rising
searching for any place to land
wind tapping the windowpane
bringing the paleness of dawn
behind us
who are numb to the passion
mountains stretch on
silent and strong
lifting a vast sky
beneath it all
is the weave of city and country
the tangle of dreams and reality
and the countless footsteps
of the faceless
setting out again, fading down the hall
in the morning
faint click of a door
sealing off the shape of
a little comfort.

I was sitting at a table in a café when she walked in.

I said, “Hey, good-looking stranger— would you like a cup of coffee?”

We were laughing, drinking coffee—

when suddenly, she caressed me.

We were heading straight to the wedding—

then I woke up, needing coffee.

In the shadow of water
I know your true face.
not in the shadow
but in the feeling of
being in it.

…do you understand?

there’s a coolness
that wraps around me
just right,
like when evening comes
and the southern sun
finally relents its strength of illumination
to the unknowing of night.

through the shade of a wave
opaque enough to dilute
the intensity of the light
but not enough
to stop it from reaching me,
I recognize you.  

who are you
that you should linger
in my inner sight
like a sunspot
staining my vision wherever I look,
changing colors
behind my closed eyes?

a stranger?

perhaps I’ve known you
in other lives.
maybe we were lovers.
maybe we were almost lovers.
maybe this is our dance.
we circle each other
like leaves in an eddy,
a brief swirl of proximity
before we’re shot back out
to the flow of the river
like children on a slide,
laughing in our innocence—
in our ignorance.

then comes the
inevitable separation,
the distance,
the peculiar ambiguity
we wear like a skin—
like a camouflage.

but I still see you,
from time to time,
behind the eyes of a stranger

and

I still feel you
whenever I am in
the shadow of water.

I'll close my eyes. I'll smile. I'll keep quiet.
Tears are nothing and I realize it.
I realize, but I don't want to!
To live, to breathe without you, like you do!

I'll give a hug and run my hand over
Your rough unshaven cheek, my lover.
And I will go away, I'll pass you by with no trick.
But only my heart will be filled with a heart-break.

You're a stranger and I'm a stranger too.
I swear, I won't cry and I won't be blue.
But how can I calm down my heart after all?
I don't want to stop loving you! Forever and whole!

Associated with Death

Most of my life,
Death has been interested in me.

Like a crush teasing you
Just letting you know it's there.

A new song you put on repeat
Because it resonates in your soul.

It would disappear in the bad times,
Take hold in the good.

A stranger.
A best friend.

I'll be associated with death
The rest of my life

Because I decided once
It was time to die.

does it hurt you that we don't talk anymore?
that I am now a passing stranger on the street?
it doesn't hurt me.... because you did that enough.
deep inside I know I will never love again
will never be able to give my heart away to another stranger
you were what was supposed to be the better part of me
and now I can't even imaging feeling another ones touch.
I really hoped I never had to know this feeling
you told me you loved me under the moon with the stars so bright not so long ago
and I believed you.
I thought the sun would shine again....
but I will never love again.

You are the warmth in the serenity I never drank,
the final page of a novel I hold off reading
just to stretch the story one more night.
You are the lullaby I hummed when I forgot the lyrics
but remember the ache.

I think I’ve been writing to you in everything—
in the way I halt at fullstops
Because I'm afraid
there's always an end from a beginning
I do not know the color of your eyes,
but I know how they’ll light up when you speak of things you love.
I haven’t felt your hand in mine,
but I know how I’ll memorize the curve of your thumb
like it’s punctuation—
a comma in the sentence of my life
that says: pause here. something beautiful is coming.

If you’re wondering,
yes—
I’ve saved you all the best lines.
The ones that never made it into poems
because they were too soft, too sacred, too soon.
They live folded in my chest
like notes passed under desks in classrooms of longing.
I don’t send them,
because I want to give them to you in person—
when we are older,
and ready,
and brave enough to admit we were always meant to find each other
in a world full of almosts.

And when you arrive—
with your quiet eyes and your laugh that tastes like home,
don’t be surprised if I cry.
Not because I am sad,
but because it is a kind of grief
to wait so long for a face you already loved
in every stranger that almost looked like you.

To you, whom I haven’t met yet—
come slowly,
but come.
This heart has been keeping time in poetry,
and every line
has always led me to you.


Erennwrites