Rain(ing)

Hold on just a little longer

please

if not for you, for me

I need that softness, that comfort, your heartbeat

When you leave (it used to be if, now it’s when)

what will you feel and see in your final heartbeat on earth?

will it be a flashlight from the past, the smile and comfort of a loved one?

or a glimpse of a shining future could’ve been

When your last breath falls out, a final sigh

did you find comfort or salvation?

was there a moment where you felt ‘aha’

did you see the gentle translucent figures of ghosts past in the corner

willing you in?

Did you try, just for a wispy moment

to not take their hand?

Was the pull slight and weak, or did it draw you in like the spiral down in a water slide

into kaleidoscope dreams, a candy field

Could you hear everything, like a pin drop or a butterfly heartbeat?

did the entire universe stop, did the world stop doing its stupid dumb spinning dance

just for you

just for your final moment

Was me being two minutes late a generous act of blue sky fate

or did I also fail, did I stumble and hesitate just long enough

Was my quick-pace-but-scared intent too little too late?

did I enter just in time to miss the calm chaos + the room spinning

Or maybe I wasn’t to be

that moment wasn’t mine to share

Amber-then-red-stay where you are, stay

Only wanted me to see the still, when gentle beats stop

but I could sense it still you know

sense the escape, the exit, the finality to it all

if you were a butterfly I’d sense that final slow, lazy yawn of your wings dropping to the ground

to rest

to peace

to white cotton wool foggy sky

And those drifting vibrations of change, of time, of you

still resonate and falter and yearn and influence

all these years

later

later

sometimes ebbing into nothing, just a gentle glow, red LED in the dark

like

I’m here, still here

just gently

Then other times, beat beat

old photos, scent of old books in attic, black & white history

a sense of you, who you were, who you shaped me to be

If only I could zoom out so, so so so far in the universe

I could just simply look back, zoom in on you

in your favorite space and position in time and the universe

and you’d still be there

sun shine, smiles, no sense of

impending loss

But I’d be so far away, too far away to capture it

I’d reach out knowing I can never grasp that moment again.

They say the flap of a butterfly wing causes tiny changes with such vast impacts

But when I look at this red/black flitter flutter flapper I see no echo, no ripped effect

crossing times, years, countries and space

just a dull reflection in the muddy water below me

my face bending distorted through time trust and memories

Flash back to a childhood home, a memory once encased and sealed

now silently slowly corroding and rusting without remedy

my heart beats faster then slower, easy now, easy

plant a seed, watch it die, wither

some things better left buried

There’s a ripple wind blowing right through me, wrapping itself around each bone until they ache

A constant reminder of time, of memories increasingly out of focus

looking up from the murky waters of now, through a periscope, through colours to above and the pasrt

And I’m scanning around to find you on the beach, gentle smile, hair blowing in the early summer breeze

it’s so tangible, I can, I can… I can’t

and I see scattered remnants of letters, of love, of hope, of promise

being swayed and persuaded and pushed by the winds of time

they’re in tiny pieces now, so fragmented I could never piece together the word or letters

they’re blowing in the wind now

And I turn my face back to you but you’ve nearly gone, fading until just a whisper of smoke

I blink again and you’re gone. It’s all gone.
I see only rust, broken down industrial building, nature desperately trying to cling to it, to rebuild

and I realise I have nothing to cling to

empty air in my hands

I’d make a fist but what’s the point

and that light? that gentle reminder blink<>blink<>blink?

it’s so far away now I might just be imagining it.

that if I close my eyes so hard and press on them I’ll see stars and it’s your light

But I know it isn’t, it can’t be

it’s the vast deception of my mind, a decaying grey mass I call me