My lover, you followed me on lost paths, chasing my longings deeper, before I turned and saw, you’re not there. The pieces I broke off to mark my exit you ate and then flew away, without any words, disappearing in hollows of echoing woods. I know my soul’s alone by the absence of those Missing pieces. How can they be gone, slipped into an eternity of forgetfulness, or thoughtlessness, pushed there by denial and an intense effort to pretend you didn’t happen, unless they were born at sometime in the messy afterbirth of a mind gone mad? If I let my thoughts take these updrafts of imagination, to soar above this wilderness of lore, I’ll see you again. The pain’s breathtaking, should I plunge back below to the feigned wellness of peace? Or perhaps, stay on these heated gestures of reaching and slip into the coldness of space losing the oxygen of you, and with tears and reluctant release my light will dim and finally extinguish.