I sent my love to you by train, as if
That made any difference. Those same trains
Still make me think of you, even though
You and your life have long since moved on.

Somehow, it seems that I haven’t.

There is a hole that you never really filled
That is even emptier than when I tried
Increasingly desperately to cram you into it.

The Sun has long set, but still
I look to the sky.

The beautiful moments we could have shared
Are long gone; they live a ghostly half life
In the recesses of my imagination,
Only occasionally haunting my conscious mind.

This would have been time for a text:
A few small thoughts, wrapped up in too many
Words, connecting us briefly across the miles.
Today, one of those thoughts would be
“I miss you”, but I cannot share it with you.

Curse this memory of mine, this
Retentive memory that seems only
To retain pointless trivia and things I would
Rather forget, like your phone number;

Curse this heart of mine, this
Battered, masochistic vessel of my love
That seems somehow to retain some love
For you;

And curse the person you have become,
This impostor masquerading as the friend
I once had, the jaded husk that seems to be
All that remains of the wide eyed optimist
Who could move me to words like no one else;
Who was a tapestry woven from purest poetry.

I send my love to you by train,
And wish, with every fibre of my being,
That I could stop.

09/12/2015

Author's Note: Sequel to "Betjeman Country", alas.

Posted on 10/02/2015
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince