All the places I have been
and sat, and wept, and dried my tears
moving on to another destination
leaving you there
in shards, in bottle tops, in crumpled napkins and cigarette box
leaving you there
in unmade sheets, flung wide windows, ageless sea gracing our loss
with her eternity.
I have run from you, I have gathered wood and returned, I have blown us up
and patched us back together
and all this time you have been gone
long and lost like the sea shell necklace made at 17
at the bottom of the ocean, where you pickle white turn into effervescence
in the corner of my vision, crossing my path ever more and never again
for lovers who are lost, for lovers riding trains alone with a ghost
for you who stroked me in ways that left me alive when you were not
for you who is no longer here and breathes in my dreams despite all
your inky whorl, your blazing silence
All the bright places were with you
we saw them all through a shiny lens called love
I pointed out the milky way and you laughed, I still hear your shellac cadence
on the tip of my tongue as when we danced and you held me a little too close
the mixture of the day, salt, sea, sun, rubbing from us both into mercury
when I lay here now, wherever I am, I remain still with you
if the room is dark I see light, if the bright makes my eyes hurt I stare into it until blind
for nothing is any longer safe or sound
you remind me of the cliffs by our villa and how at night we lay listening
to the beat and roar of the sea thundering her fists upon ochre visage
we did not know then what was to come, would it have made anything different?
I doubt.
All the bright places were with you
I wear your memory like a shroud and a halo
it torments me and gives me sustenance
without you I am hallowed ground waiting for first rain
I hear it now, it is gathering, it will soon pour down
and I will be free to scream into the sound
where are? Where have you gone? Would you really
leave me to make up this life alone?
where nothing, least of all moments, capture the intensity
of holding you, absorbing you, swimming into you until
you are an echo and I am the receding wave
crying her diminishing retreat.

Candice Louisa Daquin of French Egyptian heritage moved from France to America and has worked and lived in the American SouthWest as a Psychotherapist and Writer since. Her work can be found at TheFeatheredSleep .