‘Our Most Significant’ – Poetry

By Anonymous

Always when we walk,
you would wander too far
into the dark; and always
I would follow you,
through gardens of grey,
with pages of stone
and black chalk.

I met you in a coffee shop up north.
We both drank tea,
you took sugar, of course.
I got confused because my coat
looked exactly like yours,
and we’d both gotten up at the same time
so when I returned I could have sworn
I’d drank more, and the seat
was unusually warm;
that was when I noticed
the ruby lipstick around the rim,
then you were standing over me
hazel hair with a fringe,
“look at you”
the first words you said to me –
the rest, poetry.

Dandelion dreams
blown away with the
husk of a seed.
You didn’t seem happy,
and for the longest time
I didn’t mind, you were mine
in your perfect misery.
At night we’d go to a lake
that looked across the sea.
There was where we’d bleed
out our bitter resentment for
all the things that weren’t to be.
To me, our most significant
moment was when you
pressed a fifty pence piece
to your lips and threw it so far
I swear the only star
in the sky called its chance.
Into the unknowing distance it fell
and just under the oceans screams,
you’d whisper quietly –

“do you hear how the waves
land softly upon the shore?
how the moon pulls them in,
to send them out again in force;
and the man made of sand
with his sword, ‘not one night more!’
disappearing as would dust,
into an ocean, the sweetest storm;
and as breaks the light of day
within the calm, he finds anew.
to look for hope, to look for love
vowed for victory, but never soon.”

If there was where we’d fall to sleep,
I’d wake with tales of kings and queens.
You’d touch my hand, but never speak,
for only the lonely know nothing of dreams.

Then came the day when we’d part ways.
I’d hardly processed that your hair
was no longer hazel before you spoke,
nothing notable. A subtle joke.
It didn’t seem right to smile but I did.
And as I did I became aware,
that this was likely the last time
you would make me laugh.
Your voice withered, and
thus replayed a montage
of our fondest moments.
I regret to say I don’t remember a goodbye.
We were there 4 minutes, maybe 5.
The sum of a lifetime swept away,
where I’d seen promise, you saw decay.

So recite did I, the kinder times.
Until nothing would remind
me of the memories you left me.
Until soon your face
fades from familiarity;
as have all the faces
of lovers whose names
have long since slipped my tongue.

Months, years would pass before I
find myself in the same place we’d met.
As I ordered my tea I noticed,
my jacket sat opposite another man.
No sachets of sugar next to the
lipstick stained cup emitting steam.

Struck with grief,
I ran to the lonely lake
and dived deep. As I arose
thousands of coins clinked
and slipped between my fingers
and blew through the wind
like sand into the sea.
Who was I to think of
only one star in the sky?
For tonight, they’re all in plain view;
and the words whispered,
they weren’t meant for me,
they were meant for you.

Always when we walk
you would wander too far
into the dark; and now
I stand idle by, as
it envelops you,
more fool me
and my lonely heart.