Myself in a Mirror
Brian Matthews

It only rains when I walk at night,
when the stars refuse to sink below the misty air.
And when I pause to absorb it the rain stops,
only dancing around the halos of the streetlights.

There is beauty to be found in the myriad sounds of silence.
All the complexities transcend to simplicity. All
events become trivial, and even death holds no fear for me now. But I'd
rather fear something than love nothing.

Passion and wonder, at anything more than instinct, disappear with age.
Sad and empty feelings replace the love, the lust, the longing.
I find monotony in the haze above. It is a life where there is no
starry deep ebony sky or brilliant hued blues.

It takes someone or something truly special to
penetrate the shadows. To make up for the wonderful naïveté
that lost me along the way. Any happiness I know is found
in your eyes, in your face, and in your arms.

Yet everything persists as if it weren't so,
as I am here and you are there. Time erases everything
without reservation... even that which we long to embrace.
Memory's ripples extend past your voice over your breaths and past your features.

Though I will see you again,
my memory alone lies beside me each night.
I hate this way of living, caging only desire and jealousy and longing.
But my truths are ghosts. And so I'm left here, ceaselessly feeling...