Year On

I want you to feel

the unbearable lack of me.

I want your skin

to yearn for the soft lure of mine;

I want those hints of red

on your canvas

to deepen in passion for me:

carmine, buburgundy.

I want you to keep

stubbing your toe

on the memory of me;

I want your head to be dizzy

and your stomach in a spin;

I want you to hear my voice

in your ear, to touch your face

imagining it is my hand.

I want your body to shiver and quiver 

at the mere idea of mine.

I want you to feel as though 

life after me is dull, and pointless,

and very, very aggravating;

that with me you were lifted

on a current you waited all your life to find,

and had despaired of finding

as though you were wading

through a soggy swill of inanity and ugliness

every minute we are apart.

I want you to drive yourself crazy 

with the fantasy of me,

and how we will meet again, against all odds,

and there will be tears and flowers,

and the vast relief of not I,

but us.

I am haunting your dreams,

conducting these fevers

from a distance,

a distance that leaves me weeping,

and storming,

and bereft.

KATIE DONOVAN (1962 - )