Just one day ago, you were with me—
Not with your mind, less often heart,
But I could feel our hands entwined,
Our fingers locked together again,
And you were here just once more—
With me.

The open air whispered,
So I simply put it off as your voice
Calling to me from the void
That we both deepened so.

My hands on your hips,
I swayed with you, a testament to the winds
That had so long pushed against us.
Your body was with me, your muscle;
Flesh and sinew encompassed me,
But I could not find your face.
What held me fast, just last morning
Was no lover of mine, nor had it ever been.
Only a figure, faceless, composed of sin.
You’re gracing me now, my wraith in the wind.

When I said your eyes had a shine,

I never thought that they’d be dulled.
They were baked of the richest chocolate;
Deep, dark, with insight I will never know.
Along the way, once we’d parted,
Each gaze I’d put into those eyes,
Each graze of our lips, curve of my smile
Each thrust of your hips, each surefooted mile
Had melted away, along with your spirit;
And you might come to me, now,
A lone man’s shell, a wraith in the wind.

Lips on which I’d discovered myself
Had since been sealed shut;
I knew that others could still open them,
But you’d changed the locks
And long since hidden the keys from me.

Words now hanging by their necks,
I see them all strung up in rows.
They were promises born for me;
Their infancy was fruitful, and I nursed them.
I took as much care as I could to keep them,
And then you took your own children, took them from me.
Day after? I see them dangling dead from the rafters
In a world that you, too, had birthed
And given to me, not only by word, but by promise.

Still you give new life, you bring it forward,
Gifting it unto whoever might be fortunate enough.
You deliver joy with avarice to those you love,
And that you smile makes me smile, yet still—
Still I yearn for the touch I’ve forgotten,
Even if its scent still hovers over me.
You have loved before, you will love again.
And me? Love will come for me, too,
But this heart has hardened—
Once of such supple, malleable tin,
Forged now by spite, of sultry sorrow, born of your sin,
I linger here, your loyal construct, your wraith in the wind.

Then, too, shall the seas call for me?
Trembling down the wayward roads, my footfall echoes—
The ghost of my own two feet is the remnant of yours,
And it’s been so long since I’ve walked this path alone,
And it’s been so long since I’ve braved the dark unknown,
Oh, it’s been so long since this heart has grown—

And through this bramble, thick and thin,
My strong steel heart encases tin,
I am he, I am flourished by sin,
When all falls through, I hold you within—
You are my ghost, my savior,
My wraith in the wind.

When all falls through, I hold you within,
My ghost, my savior,
My wraith in the wind.