The After

Now, I’m at your window,

And in the dying glow of twilight;

I watch you.

I watch over you.

As the orange sky grows leaden,

I reach out to the past that is all

I have of me, now.

I stare down at the blue world,

I was once a part of;

The world that moves on,

Incessant, worried, bubbling,

Though I can’t,

But for the crimson proof of life that I lack.

I look at you, through this veil,

That separates my world from yours,

Your gay, busy, teeming world;

And mine, grey, quiet and motionless.

And yet, as I stare through this gossamer membrane,

To me, you are a vision,

Hazy through the rippling material,

Yet, the best thing I’ll ever see.

The only thing, I’ll ever care to see.

I watch you go about the passage of events that is your ‘life’,

And I grow heavy with a grief,

That almost feels like an ache

In the heart I do not have.

And the days gone by,

Seem so distant, so unbelievably unreal;

A glimmering mirage on my horizon.

A reminder of what I was,

And what I do not have, now.

Those days, that time,

The feel of you,

Is merely a silver dream

That I was woken up from, harshly,

Only to witness all my years go up in the greedy flames.

How I did try to reach you!

To shriek my presence to you!

To lay a hand on your shoulder,

To comfort you as you shook with sobs,

As you read my letters in wild anguish

To tell you I was here…

…And would be till eternity.

Does it affect me, now?

Does the sadness gnaw at my ‘non-being’?

I’m too cold to feel;

Too dry to cry;

To light to cast a shadow;

Too unobvious to even ripple the air;

Too weak to reach you.

Yet, I feel no longing for that world

Of sunshine, colors, laughter and life.

I no more wish to be a part.

I have let it all go.

Its only you that keeps me tethered,

That keeps me from ‘passing on’.

And so I watch you.

I watch over you.

But you are oblivious.

When I whisper that I love you,

You cannot listen.

When I cry over you,

My tears do not wet your cheeks.

I cannot feel your hands in mine,

Hear you call out my name.

I cannot, in my loneliness

Turn to the comforting warmth of your shoulder,

Cannot tell you, how much it all meant to me,

Even the tiny things.

But I let those memories linger about me,

As I continue drifting, bound to immortality.

I do wish, that once,

Just once,

I could call you,

So you would look up,

And look into my world.

I wish I could hold your face

And feel those tears,

Feel you somehow.

I wander in a limbo,

As the time that reigns your world, passes,

As you change and grow,

Forget and move on.

And the wispy me floats,

Suspended in silence,

Formless, lonely,

A nothing.

This burden of accepting the inevitable,

And if knowing that I’ll love you forever,

Breaks me.

And though, ‘we’ can never be,

I’ll still watch you,

And I’ll watch over you.

P.S.- This is the first proper poem I wrote, not counting the ones I wrote about trees and pets as a kid.