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