Visions (Poem)

Bits of conversation fill my head

Tangling with words we haven't said

Glimpses of a movement you once made

Knowing I could live but dream instead

Wondering if you saw the part I played

Whether I'm the reason that you stayed

Only half believing it could be

Well aware I want what I forbade

Questioning my own reality

Doubting in my mind the things I see

Altering perception fast as light

Do you know for years you've haunted me?

Speaking words you never could recite

Giving bliss as if to test my flight

All is but illusion, this I know

Yet more felt than objects in my sight

The world may see my skin but just below

Simmers what I think but never show

Lifetimes lived with you but more than this,

Guessing where in your sweet dreams you go

Do you drown in memory's abyss?

Is there music in a voice you miss?

When you close your eyes do you relive

Each averted glance, aborted kiss?

Do you harbor what you should forgive?

Search for signs in every narrative?

Or repel all company save one,

Who is not cure but palliative?

While it's possible these things you've done,

All too likely I'm the only one

And upon this thought my vision fled

So I end back where I had begun

Nothing but the present fills your head

Forgetting more than half the things I've said

Shadows of a sacrifice you made

Knowing you could dream but live instead.