Where The Embers Fall

Lana Cortes

Famished, I arrive

 to find sugar coats your lips & tongue

Spice dances in your eyes

I’ve severed ties with my reality

in hope to get in touch with you

I stride in beside another man

His hand is fixed on the nape of my neck

gracing my path with a weightless hold

as he walks me through

a cemetery of lovers

both past and present

Cinder clouds still hang above

for each time

I’d set flame to the ruins

The embers breathe beneath our feet

housing just enough fever 

to pose threat of a spark

in turn tormenting an inevitable fate

We enter empty handed

How lovingly cold

Nudging me forward

to pay my respects

A grin still lives on you

unbeknownst to him

You snicker to his back 

as he waltzes away

A wolf to a sheep

as mother’s lids fall heavy

Brush my locks aside

I part the seas

so you can better sink

How easy it is for me

to talk about a place

I’d been to with you

so many a time

Somewhere to this day

you claim to have never been

What a familiar vicinity

& a sentiment to match

If I close my eyes & drift

your voice afloat nearby

it is almost as if you had never left

A soft touch to the shoulder

I am met by his gaze

bringing me back

I try to make it stay

Lamenting to a six foot hole

brimmed with only 

space & time

I’ve dressed in all black

in sync with the occasion

He holds me by my grief

Guiding me away from the grass

& onto the cobblestone drive

If not in this life

then perhaps in another