i thought time could bring me back to life, but i share more properties with the dead than with the living now, and all time can do for the dead is fade them from the memory of the world. i miss you every bit as much today as i did on the day you left. i keep coming across tiny things and amazing things that i wish i could tell you, show and share with you. i am equally haunted by words i spoke and by the ones i left unspoken. there are no good apologies left, no words with the power to change anything, and the thought of truly never seeing you again, the finality of it, has shattered my interest in life. i've sacrificed my joy and my despair to the god of nothing. i understand now, but understanding is overrated - what good is it to me? still, i understand. at long last, i know; i do not only feel worthless, i believe it with clarity of thought: i've no value for this world nor anyone in it. maybe there is forgiveness somewhere, but surely not the kind which i can give myself. i still love you, always will, and this is my final word.

i no longer hate the dreams

that follow me home, that trailing glow

which hums their subterranean lullabies,

their sweet ruse of lovely falsehoods;

i no longer mind it.

i built this place, i invited them

i've fed them the enduring embers of

some ancient wildfire 

so they'd come,

and tomorrow 

they'll come again --

to teach me and to tell, 

in the language of beauty and longing,

of memories, of the life

of one nameless human

building, in the forest,

another sun 

to replace 

the one he'd lost.