Ink And Reason

If tomorrow you were to leave,
you’d take with you a part of me –
say, a hand, let’s go with the left one,
because the right I still need
for when the electricity bill shows up.
The heart I’d split in installments:
two beats to you, one to me –
I’m not that generous, after all,
God forbid,
what would I do alone
with so much love left to give away?
If you didn’t know what to do,
better to stay silent, silent,
silent like a broken clock
that no longer knows if it’s today or yesterday,
silent and count the stars on the ceiling,
maybe one of them
is actually my eye
watching you
and not daring to blink
for fear of losing you.
If you were to stay,
you’d be my first love
and my last,
and the one in the middle too –
when I’d argue with you
and then whisper sorry myself,
like an old dog
who knows the bowl is empty
but still wags its tail
waiting for a pat on the head.
And if we were no longer,
we’d still be –
two shadows on the wall
holding hands
when light slips between the broken blinds,
two names written with a finger
on fogged-up glass
and wiped away at once
so no proof remains
that they ever existed, even for a moment,
in a world that forgets everything
before it manages to love.
Stay.
Or go.
Either way,
tomorrow I’ll still wake up alone
and still look for you
among the cold sheets
like a dream
I dreamed in a language
only the two of us spoke
and now
no one understands it anymore –
not even me.