You said you’d come back

Poems

Desire.

I waited by the window,

watching the seasons, indifferent

to the ticking of the clock, the passing cars,

their shadows stretching thin over the pavement.

There is a garden in my mind,

where lilies open, silently

calling out to the bees. The air

is thick with the scent of longing,

a sweetness almost unbearable,

yet I breathe it in, again and again.

You said you’d come back

when the sun was high,

when the world was ripe with promise.

But the sun has lingered and faded,

leaving only the memory of warmth,

the trace of light on the horizon.

At night, I listen for the sound

of your footsteps on the gravel,

the creak of the gate as it opens.

But the silence is a vast ocean,

swallowing every whisper, every hope.

I write your name in the dirt,

knowing it will be washed away,

knowing it was always ephemeral,

like the dew that clings to the morning grass.

In dreams, you are whole, vivid,

your touch a firebrand,

your voice a river. I wake,

clutching the absence of you,

the sheets twisted and damp,

the room filled with the echo of your laughter.

There is no cure for this hunger,

no solace in the fading light.

I am bound to this waiting,

this aching for what once was,

what might never be.

In the end, I am a garden,

empty and overgrown,

tended by shadows,

haunted by the ghost of your promise,

the echo of your leaving.

---

An invitation.

In the early light, the sea

extends its invitation, a hand

of salt and light, pale

as memory, recalling the touch

of the father, the way he held you

above the water, your small body

a weightless question.

You step into the cold embrace,

and the past rises around you,

the same waves, relentless,

the same insistence on returning

to what was lost, a shell

held to the ear, whispering

of things taken by the tide.

Each stroke a reckoning,

a push against the known currents,

as if by swimming

you could revise the story,

find in the depths

a new beginning, some

undiscovered truth.

The sea does not yield

its secrets easily; it holds them

in the shifting sands,

in the echo of the gull's cry,

in the sudden chill

that brushes your skin, reminding you

of what you cannot change.

And yet, there is solace

in the motion, in the rhythm

of body and water, the way

they meet and part, a brief union

before the inevitable release,

the return to shore.

You swim until you are tired,

until the ache in your limbs

becomes its own kind of clarity,

and you know the sea

will always be there, waiting,

a vast and indifferent witness

to your small, persistent quest.

---

Maiden.

In the field, the light shifts,

the air thick with whispers,

the murmured doubt of men

who cannot see beyond

the bloodied soil, who dismiss

the vision for the comfort

of the plow and hearth.

She stands, alone in her certainty,

a girl clad in steel, eyes

sharp with unearthly fire.

Her voice, rising like a prayer,

carries the weight of centuries,

the plea of the oppressed,

the unbroken line of faith.

There are those who would call her

mad, who would bind her

to the pyre for the audacity

of her conviction, for speaking

with the voice of saints,

for wearing the armor

of anointed kings.

But in her heart, the echo

of the divine resounds,

a clear and ringing bell

that cuts through the haze

of fear and doubt, a beacon

for the lost, the weary,

the ones who follow her banner.

She rides through the mist,

a warrior blessed and cursed,

each step a defiance

of the natural order, each breath

a testament to the divine spark

that sets her apart, that burns

within her like a relentless star.

In the end, the fire

will consume her flesh,

but not the spirit

that rises, unquenched,

from the ashes, a flame

that dances in the hearts

of those who remember,

who hear in the wind

the whisper of her name,

a call to rise, to stand,

to fight against the darkness

with the light she kindled

in her brief, fierce passage

through this world.