VERSE | IF I COULD

If I could live another life with you 
I’d talk of a few more things
More palpably, more honestly with you
Of things that gnawed
At my mind; at the way my gut wrenched
Balling up inside, or even when
The pit of my belly dissolved
In a fluttering crush of butterflies
I’d speak of love light-footed and pure
The kind that knocks you to the floor
And the next instant pins shimmering wings
On your tingling spine so you can fly
High high, breath-catchingly high!

I’d talk of heartbreaks too
That shred the organs into little bits
Where the pain ripples in screaming peals
Your thoughts marking time with the cacophony
Where you stumble on your own feet
Where you want to just lie down and feel
Nothing for a while
I’d share secrets that I have held deep inside
Now frozen, frigid, petrified
Mute scars of speechless agonies
Never named, never identified

I’d also tell you that I loved
My quiet, my solitude
When it was just me in my room
Or just you and me
Sipping tea
In the lounge, watching tv
And then I’d tell you about the things
That would make my tone-deaf heart sing
A constant humming underneath
Beneath the sheath of my skin
Of peace that was soothing, softening
Of flame-bright hope and quiet joy

I’d talk to you
Of beginnings and of endings too
Some tragic some tender
Of sometimes going under
But always re-surfacing, I would
Talk of spirituality, the ethereal kind
That makes the hair stand on end
The kind that quickens your breath
That makes life and even death
A fleeting, splendorous enterprise
A mystical trip with no finish line

And when your time here or mine
Was drawing to a close
Together we would
Strum those notes
One last time
Of all the things that we’d talked about
And all the times that we had spent
And then I’d have held your hand in mine
We would have laughed and cried
And laughed again
Because nothing would have been left
Unsaid at the end.
Image: Cathy Jacobs

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