Embrace

The tension of distance explodes in friction 

As two feet learn to dance again
Stumbling, fumbling, hesitant and clumsy 

We try at least to walk again
Chipped nails and speared tongues 

Our voices quiver in uncanny dissonance 

As the familiar is dug out of forgotten crevices 

Of a mind that had long drifted on.

Faced by the stark plurality of worlds 

Mirrors shatter as reflections stain
The strain of reliving every detail, 

Every blemish, every look, every touch, 

Every last word
Is every bit as shattering as is euphoric
And yet stung, battered and bruised 

Our war scars are dearer to us 

Than the smiles appearing with the suddenness of a rainbow, 

Lost before we can be quite sure.

Harmony, accord and treatises of peace 

Can only be black or white we realise 

As we trail blinded by mists of greener dreams and fantasies
The skin we tear at in the name of boundaries 

Is raw and slowly turning a dull shade of soft purple mornings
And we rub our eyes spreading out memories 

In thin films till they can't be told from the blotchy mascara 

That remains somewhere on a finger nail gone unnoticed
And we stretch cracked lips till they primly purse
Drawing blood and not the smiles we sought.

Eyes lowered in remembered chivalry 

We depart 

Lest the bitterness pull us deeper into an embrace
And we walk away 

The whispered silence following us.