Corridors

so accustomed to hospital corridors,
the creams, gentle blue, pale greens
that define and encompass my days,
the outside world, full of colour, no longer seems real
am i even here?
nothing is clear
the light and the cold and the roads I pass through
are only ways and directions to you
where you lay in your bed speaking strangely
muttering in distant places, one hand in another world

you passed through a door and don’t know it
I watched your determined and turbulent ride
you returned to this other side
i feel sorrow but never show it
you are not really here any more
my heart is an empty void
the well is too deep
i sit here beside you
not who I want to be
not hidden
but partially dead inside
– this waiting is killing me

In the Dock

‘remember you’re loved,’ you said
‘always remember that’
like a life-belt handed before a storm
those storms i never see coming

but what happens
on monday, tuesday,
wednesday, this week
until the weather is fine again
on friday, saturday,
sunday, next week

it’s not about words
but the lack of them
sink or swim
I can’t ask you the reason
you won’t speak
you are floating way off-shore

you leave me
to think
on dry land
to work out
what I did wrong
and when I tell you
you will say
‘no it wasn’t that,
it was this’
something i never thought
something i never did
something misunderstood
you held onto
and kept to yourself

this time i wont think
and you can tell me
or not as you wish
you can tell me
the magic is dead
it’s not dead in my head
it’s not dead in my heart
it’s not dead in the world
it’s sitting waiting
for you to come back
from your sailing trip
so am I