Godwin’s

The blinds are drawn, 
my desk lamp dimmed 
as I sit down to write at 7 a.m.

A small speaker sits on the window sill
playing a song I haven’t heard in years
as the sadness finds its way back in.

I’ve been roaming around, always looking down at all I see. Painted faces fill the places I can’t reach.

Kings of Leon, Use Somebody

A subtle pressure builds in my cheeks;
a memory returning from the dead: of the
two of us on an ice and beer mission to Godwin’s.

I can’t think of you dead, so I push those thoughts away; but I don’t want to push away the glimmers of you that keep appearing to me, speaking from the great beyond.

“Hold on. Let this song finish,” you say.
But when I try to reply, all that forms
is a lump at the back of my throat;
an aching rawness seizing my voice.

And so I sit in silence, unable to speak
as the song fades and I watch you leave.
“I love you, old friend,” I finally say,
but you are already gone,
it is already too late.