I.

Those shadows lingered hesitantly,

quivering across

the reflection confined

in that damned mirror. 

Your distorted fingers grasp at my 

rugged skin, peeling

layers away, until my

skin is adorned in bruises. Even your

hot breath somehow pervades this 

isolated atmosphere, cutting 

decisively. I recall those dripping words

of faulty promises, bringing with it slow shivers.

Staring into that damned reflection 

I can still feel that scratchy clothing cutting

across my bare skin. With trembling hands, I 

strike that damned reflection, thin shards

of our forgotten intimacy remain embedded in

my fragile hands.

 

II.

With quivering fingers, I pluck

at the shards embedded

deep within my palms.Yet amidst my 

struggles I could not pry away the 

remnant of you from my flesh. Sitting in that

scalding pool of water, I scour my bare flesh

with grains of sand- perhaps hoping that

my skin would callus and withstand

those forces

Blowing outside my 

forsaken, desolated, glass castle.

Or perhaps it would fall apart

into those damned unmemorable grains

of sand- pointless, futile.

 

III.

Yet I remain a stranger to this world,

grasping at the semblance 

of perfection your presence

once etched out for me- and those

grains of sand burrow 

beneath my skin, behind my eyes.

And I see the world- 

unattainable-

without you. 

 

IV.

In front of that damned reflection

I clutched your swiss army knife

and tried to carve progress

out of my body

but my skin kept snagging,

as though recalling the

whiskey on your breath,

and all that came out were

those damned grains of

sand. With each decisive stroke I 

etched onto my faulty body, I 

reminisced of our passion- 

swept away from my unsteady grasp.

By the time my hands ceased to move,

all that remained of me

was a pile of sand-

pointless, futile.