NEPHART.COM

After you left,

winter breeze blew my heart

Loosened it from every certainty.

And when you walked that path,

not knowing what had fallen there,

I lay in silence,

a fragile memory of green,

crumbled beneath your feet.

My poem is in a coma,

not dead.

I hope it soon gets discharged

from my mind’s bed.

Then we’ll go for a walk

along the seashore,

watch the tides come and go

and argue no more.

I would have said

it looked best in its natural state,

it might feel betrayed

to be trimmed, reshaped.

Maybe my emotions leaked,

spilled too quick,

I don’t know what fever

it happened to pick.

But I am sure

something went wrong,

my poem was silenced

mid-thought, mid-song.

I try to revive it,

restore its form,

but this quiet coma

feels like the norm.

Oh poem, wake up,

don’t drift too far,

we still have a life

exactly as we are.

I want to be that person

who called me handsome

when I had given up on my own reflection

I want to be that person

who placed a pen in my hand

and left a book like a small direction

I want to be that person

who says hello and smiles

when our paths cross without a reason

Even as a stranger

you can make someone feel seen

just for a moment, just for a season

Life moves how it wants

I won’t force it into a race

I’ll walk it, not chase

But if feelings aren’t dead

if something still lives in that space

then tell me—

who would you suspect

in your emotions’ murder case