Where did you go?
I screamed your name atop the graceful arch of the 421 bridge straddling two states. I called out for you beside a carved marker of polished stone. I whimpered soft your many nicknames under the shadows of the places where we should have kissed.
But when I screamed, the mighty Ohio took no notice. Only continued to barge west on its journey over to the Mississippi. When I called out, only crumbling angels answered in their tears of a broken November. And when I whimpered, the streets could only laugh and heckle. Poking fun at the wounded pedestrian crossing against all the wrong lights.
Where did you go?
The time here is all empty now. Time usually filled fighting temperamental tin beasts. Or clacking machines. The ones grudgingly enlisted in the fight against suffocation. Because like the blank pages squirreled everywhere in a kingdom of want, I, too, am empty. And that desolation reminds me that I will never again be that pure.
Where did you go?
I constantly chase your ghost across the expanse of too many Midwestern miles. Aching to recapture the memory of the too few smiles. The smiles outside the arts center where you once danced. Standing in the cold of a December snow. The flakes catching your long lashes. Enabling you to blink beauty as you blushed back at my naughty words.
Where did you go?
I forever seek my release in measured self-destruction. Punishing myself for the egregious sin of remaining behind—a different flavour of survivors’ guilt than the one I carried home across an ocean. Seeking numbness in a rainbow variety of ways. But the light of you always somehow shines through. And that leaves me yearning for your warmth in my world of splintering greys.
Where did you go?
Your influence, more than any other, is what helped define me. Because you were the first to call me a fox. Bestowed upon me an identity I never even realized I needed. Gave me the gift of membership into a skulk of stealthy observers. And that definition made me strive to make you proud. Because we belonged together. And I needed you.
Where did you go?
That silly boy you loved, the one with a fistful of poems and a heart full of hurt, somehow grew into a ridiculous man. A cliché character of a poorly written story, constantly sabotaging better things. Forever breaking the rules of engagement. And constantly writing the hard words no one else has the stomach to say out loud. Because someone had to say something.
Where did you go?
The winters here are so cold without you. A smothering blanket of nothingness camouflages the promises of better seasons. A freezing blankness robs me of safer havens; a broken sky weeps the reminders of unreachable heavens. Into that barren desolation a lonely fox wanders to scream his hurt at another Michigan night not shared with you.
One cry rings out the loudest.
Where the fuck did you go?
