there is a coat that i used to wear
hanging—unraveling now—
in the back of my closet, there.
It is an empty thing that, nonetheless
resurrects lives past—
moments with people & places of time
before you, that you do not know.
before you—beyond us and our life
but still buried within me
woven into the wool of the coat
that i never wear—sometimes
resurrected in the edges of my shadow,
fading onto the wall.
and I know that you have a shadow life too—
a you that i have never met,
the ghostly overlay of a person
that i can sense but never know.
sometimes, a hidden part of me
resurfaces suddenly, unexpectedly
with an errant emotion, a found photo—
the aftershock of a person
that no longer exists. and in that moment,
i feel desperately alone, as i once was
though you are often (usually)
solidly at my side.
in the space between us
there are few secrets—little obscures,
but i know too well the transformation
that i have felt with you—leaving
behind me a self that you can never know
tied to people that are not you—
and that sometimes struggles still
to catch my present, to overwhelm.
and i wonder if you also have a shadow-person
of shame and doubt, woven to your heels
stretching behind as you face the sun.
and i wonder if i would love that person also
or if the you I know would be lost
if the sun should shift
and cast a stranger between us.
in that moment i am afraid of losing you, us
to that past place, though you are often (usually)
a heartbeat away, solidly at my side.
oddly, i am glad—almost glad—
for the lingering past
and its unwanted intrusions
because if my life before will not leave me be,
so you, too, will forever remain—knitted to my bones.
a faint reassurance, in the face of loss and time
but enough for now.
