Echoes of her Face

Echoes of her face
Flit through the backs
Of my eyelids.
Like staring too long at the sun
She left a lasting impression.
Blind to the world.
Blindly in love.
Just
Blind.

The taste of her voice
Lingers in my ears.
Smoky as the Camels
She buys;
Addicting as the cocaine
She secreted away
So I wouldn’t find out.

I still can feel her
Tiny frame
Pressed up against mine.
A porcelain angel
With one wing unfurled.

I held on too tightly
And she broke
Shattered into a thousand pieces of glass -
A hundred straight razors
Pressed against my bare flesh
My exposed heart.

I am impaled by my love,
With no ability
No reason
To stop the bleeding.
Who knew a soul would
Have such lovely ventricles
To rend apart?

I feel the dull, leaden
Weight in my chest,
The scorched and trampled husk
Of a dead and useless heart.
Stamped on the side
Ink still drying, reads:
“Return to Sender,
Address Unknown.”

If you love something,
They say,
You must let it go.

But I have the feeling
They were never forced
To watch as their very
Lifeblood
Spill out into the cold darkness
Because of an accident of birth...