Here...?

Here,
There?
Everywhere...?
And, still out of reach.
A puzzle with still missing pieces,
Like waterless baths,
Tearless cries.

A wound, unhealed,
A place open,
but unfilled.
Piled into questions,
No answers.
Fostered into regret.
The stench of things undone,
unlived.
together.

Where do they all go?
Dancing around. They are ghosts,
Screaming banshees,
Hurting.
And, then hurting us who remain
to sweep and wipe and clean
the messes of the past.
To pull up: bootstraps and move,
forward
without looking back,
Straining smiles,
In the face of newly formed
relations.

Naught of things we had dreamed,
But, what life gave us to fill in
Bleakness for glee.
Doubt for surety.

Hope
falls from the table,
beyond the floor.
Out of sight.
Away from the heart.

Here,
There?
Where?

It was in our hands.

But, we are people
And, we ruin things.
Things that make us happy,,
that bring pleasure.
Things that matter
that we love,
people, places,
we ruin them.

We turn our lives into that
hobby.

Creations of nothingness, voided
from fullness and puffy glee.

Like a muted sound,
May not exist.
A stifled happiness brings sadness
and mire.

Here,
There?
Where?
Everywhere.
Every place.
Every day.
Every way.

Through all of time.
Jason Christopher Johnson
From the archives...