digital memory, an absent reality.

I still walk by the train post,
Where you'd stop,
Where I first held your hand,
The place where we promised,
so many things.

With head bowed,
and eyes askew,
I can hear the whispers,
The haunting voices of you.

Pain and peace,
both bubbling up,
on the surface.

Everyday,
I ride my bike
past your old house,
an abandoned stoop,
still tortured by the
whimsy of laughter,
an unkempt yard,
left to grow wild,
and untamed.
Like this heart of mine,
Like the foolish hope
for anything blissful or sublime.

I will not delete your texts.
I read them in silent times,
I smile to them,
I fear them

Can we go back..?

I still have your shirts
and boxers
packed away,
the smell of you...
fading.

I still have pictures in frames,
turned away from view.
I still have gifts
in attics and
crawlspaces...
still moving through
the fantasy of an absent reality.

I've saved voice-mails,
reliving those moments
inside the soft, warrantless
timbre of your voice.

And, if all these things,
should go away,
I'd still walk past your
train post,
I'd still ride my bike past
your old house.
I'd keep those messages,
I'd still smell your shirts
I'd still be moving through
the fantasy of this
absent reality.

Jason Christopher Johnson
October 10, 2014