All your looking back
And all your looking down
Have given you
Your tired posture, weary eyes
And waxen skin,
Collector of the Past
/
You, heavy shadow of the mind,
What you have found,
Has it not all been lost
Or fearfully abandoned
On twisted paths you walk
To wither for a reason?
/
You pick up strangers’ hopes
And wear them like they’re clothes –
And wear them like they’re yours –
Those ragged robes
Of impossible dreams,
Outgrown by their dreamers
/
Collector of the Past
Of poisonous regrets,
Distorted histories
And of discarded loves,
You, heavy shadow of the mind,
Return to me, I beg, one minute –
/
When I betrayed the only thing
I ever loved;
/
But oh, I know,
Your quiet ‘no’ –
The echo of my fateful ‘no’ –
Is all
That I can by the past
Be given